De-Aged Danny, gesturing to a dazed Bruce inside Wayne Manor: And this is Bruce! Otherwise known as the Himbo! Reporters: Hmm, yes, interesting... Bruce: What the- Danny: I'm not sure what that word means. I heard it from Dick, but no one will give me my answer, not even Jason, who is easily bribed. Bruce: Why are there reporters in my house!? Danny, innocent and childlike: They asked to come inside, Bruce! They seemed like really nice people, so I thought it'd be polite to give them a tour. Bruce, filled with infinite patience: I really wish you had asked me before you did that, chum. Danny: But why? We don't have anything to hide... do we, Bruce?

Or, in order to rise to the Ghost Throne, Danny has to complete a series of trials to prove he is capable of ruling (or any other reason, Danny just needs to do trials to prove himself).

The last trial, issued by Clockwork, is thus: discover the Wayne Family secret in two weeks without the use of any of his powers.

He has one shapeshift to pick a form that could endere him to the Waynes, but only one before he starts and he has to get close to the family by his own wits. Danny, after studying the family and reading of one sentence summary of each Wayne, picks the body of a six-year-old little boy that looked like a child Jason Todd.

Bruce: That child is up to something. Dick, third favorite: I don't know, Bruce; he acts like a normal kid. Jason, #1 favorite: I doubt the old man's ever met a normal kid. Tim, least favorite: Bruce is right, but can you please not talk like the villains from Chicken Run.

Prompt 245

Now Danny would openly admit, if only to himself, that he had a type when it came to relationships. If they were strong, if they were a threat to him, then chances were he would develop some sort of crush. It was how he had dated Sam and Valerie (And Johnny & Kitty) when he was a bit younger, and hell, Sam had technically succeeded in killing him, even if partly. 

Attraction towards smart people who could kill him was honestly par for the course for a Fenton or Nightingale anyway. 

And he’d also admit he enjoyed a bit of time travel, learning about times and culture long before his time, to the point that he could blend in in ancient times just as easily as the time he had been born in. That it was natural to mutter in a language lost to time. 

So color him surprise when another man perks up in the bar he had paused to get a drink in, vibrant green eyes gleaming in interest and responds in turn. And not just in the language, but able to keep up when he talks about things that once existed but haven’t been rediscovered yet. 

And one thing led to the other, and there might have been some assassins and some shenanigans that end with them both laughing together in an inn and then more and- Okay he has a type alright, and he’s ticking each box! How is that fair? 

DPXDC Prompt #58

Gotham is a city with a lot of ambient ectoplasm, enough that the Fentons move here instead of Amity Park. Danny being a pretty smart kid being the son of 2 scientists gets a scholarship to Gotham academy where he makes friends with Tim and Damian. Well the 2 were only doing it at first because they wanted to keep an eye on them scientists rarely didn’t become rouges in Batman’s gallery so can you really blame them for being cautious?

Danny is telling them about the portal that they were trying to build and how it wasn’t working and how Danny felt guilty about it. The 3 venture down there when the parents are gone and Danny wearing his hazmat goes into the portal while the other 2 watch on. Danny trips and no one’s having a good time.

They decided to take Danny to Wayne manor until they can figure out what exactly happened to him, unfortunately Danny’s new powers act up and he winds up phasing through the floor into the basement… or more accurately the Bat cave.

people have talked at length about the Dick/Tim/Damian Robin debacle and I do not currently have the mental space to wade fully into it (except to say that demonizing any of them is dumb). But I do want to say:

One of the most incorrect fan claims is this idea that Dick was playing favorites when he picked Damian over Tim because you guys. you guys.

At the time Damian became Robin, Tim was Dick's beloved little brother who he'd adored and fought beside for years, who he'd entrust his life to without hesitation, who he affectionately proclaimed to be even better than him as Robin, who he genuinely enjoyed hanging out with

and meanwhile

Dick couldn't fucking stand Damian

Death valley au

Bruce, signing and talking: Wally, stop ignoring me, I know you can also read lips. Where is D-I-C-K*

Wally, only signing: for the last time Batman, I don't know where Dick is, keep a better eye on your kid and stop bothering me I'm trying to study for my upcoming test.

Bruce: fine, but if you see him cal— text me.

Wally: yeah, yeah.

Bruce leaving, Dick gets out from under Wally's bed.

Dick: thanks babe, of we leave now we can see that movie and still have time for me to beat you in the arcade!

Wally: please, you can't beat me in your wildest of dreams.

Dick: can too! *Gets on Wally's back.*

Having a cute date while also dodging Bruce.

*if I spell out the name it means he didn't know Wally's spelling for Dick's name since he doesn't use sign language as often like Wally here,,,, also Dick and Wally have made codes in their talk to keep people knowing ASL out of their conversation, anyways my beloved au of all time

what kind of music you like listening to? could be directed either to you or the doc (or both!!)

my favorite genre of music is.. whatever i like listening to. i just like music a lot!!

if youre wanting a more specific answer than that, then i really like classical, swing and big band, and mid-century modern lounge and jazz!! bossa nova also maybe. i also like listening film scores and the occasional opera.

we also somehow happen to be in the year 2024 at the moment so maybe youre wondering about some newer genres? well all of the above is still very true! but i also like electroswing, most kinds of rock, early 2000s rave and edm.. most kinds of edm or electronic actually, and this tends to cover a wide variety of genres but i also like listening to video game soundtracks.

so I had a revelation while I was getting ready this morning...

I just wanna sit here, watch the sun come up. It occured to me that in all my time here, I've never done that. I wanna know what it looks like when it comes up over the horizon, so I can carry a picture of it in my head.

The Most Badass Film to ever cross the Planet Earth.

Kill Bill (dir. Quentin Tarantino)

Batman: The Cult #3 (1988)

[Image ID under the cut.]

[ID: Comic panels from Batman: The Cult #3 from DC Comics featuring Bruce Wayne as Batman and Jason Todd as Robin. Panel 1 Batman and Robin are surrounded in the sewers by cultists armed with clubs and axes. Robin: Looks like we’re out of places to run to, Batman. Panel 2 Close-up of Batman and Robin, back-to-back, focusing on Robin in the foreground. Robin: Guess we stand and fight. No choice. Panel 3 Still in close-up, Robin smirks while Batman turns to look at him with a fearful expression. Robin: It’s been fun, Batman. At least we’ll be going out in style. Batman: I...I... Panel 4 Still in close-up, Robin grins and shouts fiercely while Batman looks even more openly horrified. Robin: Alright, you sorry clowns! LET’S PARTY! Panel 5 Zoom out: Hoards of armed cultists colored in ominous shades of monotone yellow swarm in close to attack Batman and Robin, who are in full vivid color. Batman seems frozen or paralyzed, a lost expression on his face and barely resisting as two men grab on to his upper body and another tackles him around the middle. Robin is strongly defending, knocking cultists back with a club in a wide arc, although behind him one man is gripping and pulling his yellow cape. End ID.]

The Ultimate Crossover Episode (Epilogue)

Giving K-pop Groups (and Soloists!) Bruce Springsteen Songs

content warnings for mentions of death & chronic illness! this is a pretty intense piece, so take care of yourselves, and feel free to check out the other parts of this series (see: #six stans springsteen) for some much lighter content!

A Tentative Endorsement of Bruce Springsteen's "I'm On Fire"

My chronic pain is an action movie where nothing happens. You get all the swells of soundtrack; all the dramatic lighting; all those moments of pure terror, of catching a glimpse of death in the corner of your eye and trying to pretend it isn't there--but then the footage, the plot of the movie itself, is just a girl lying on a couch, earbuds in and eyes shut tight, heating pad wrapped around her wrist. The room is empty, and you would guess she was asleep except for the expressions that cross her face--a wince, and then something like a silent sob. And the soundtrack crescendoes, and you wait for something to happen. Will an antagonist come attack her, in her moment of weakness? Will she finally have someone to fight? But the scene stays the same--empty. She stays the same--almost, but not quite, sleeping. And then: that's the movie, you can head home now. There won't be anything new to see, not for a long while.

In the summer of 2021, I took to describing my pain by saying "I'm on fire" or "I'm burning up". Something under my skin was burning, burning, a river of lava coursing beneath the facade of a perfectly healthy body. And, on days when it got really bad, I took to listening to Bruce Springsteen's "I'm On Fire". Let's take a minute to introduce this track: it's a short song, not even three minutes long, tucked in the middle of Springsteen’s 1984 album, Born in the USA. It's not the best song on the album (not anywhere close, in my opinion), and it's not the most interesting, either. But it may well be my favorite, and it's definitely my most-listened, song from Born in the USA. I love “I’m On Fire”--not in a way that’s easy to comprehend or express, not in a way I’m proud of or happy about. But, since I talked about it in my Enhypen post, I've wanted to at least try to explain what this song means to me.

As my health deteriorated and my terror increased in that summer of pain, the first summer I spent with that chronic illness, I found so much comfort in singing along the simple hook of "I'm On Fire", a hook that I don't think was meant to be about what it became about to me. But it didn't matter; woah, oh, oh, I'm on fire. How different, after all, is it to be burning mentally rather than physically? And the burning got to my mind, eventually. I was still new to the pain, then, barely seven months new, and I was convinced the burning would take me out any day that summer. You know it's nothing because the doctors say it's nothing, that there's nothing terribly wrong with you, but it feels like you have to give out at some point, right? Like, death must be in the room, otherwise there's no way my body would be screaming this loudly. My chronic pain is hearing a fire alarm go off all day, every day, but being told whenever I ask: "Oh, there's no fire." Like, I guess it's nice that there's no fire--I guess I should be glad. But then why won't the goddamned alarm stop screaming at me? How am I supposed to pretend this is normal?

So, that summer, my life became a movie, one where I looked just like I always had and sat around the house, becoming perpetually attached to my heating pad and moving as little as possible, for fear of setting something off by accident and making the pain even worse. In later seasons, my existence would become more normal, waking up in the morning less surprising to me, and with that, the fear less gripping. And I would start to move again, learning to block out the fire alarm that soundtracks my existence.

But there's still “I’m On Fire”. My dad, who was my introduction to Springsteen and who I, as a result, share most of my Springsteen favorites with, hates "I'm On Fire". And I get why, but I love the song anyway. I could listen to it all day. And I guess I could justify that opinion in a nice, reviewer-y way: the texture of the guitar instrumental is gorgeous, and the melodies are sticky & perfect for singing along to, despite how flatly Springsteen performs them.

But I don’t know, I don’t really care a lot about “I’m On Fire” being good. And I don't care a lot about it being bad, either. I don't care that the lyrics give me the creeps; I don't care that it's really a big nothing of a song, even compared to Springsteen's own "Nothing Man". I just know that it captures something about my summer of 2021, a summer that remains queen of my nightmares--it captures how those months were terrifying and yet so, so banal. You know, that feeling when Springsteen so casually sings, almost mutters, “someone took a knife, baby, edgy and dull, and cut a six-inch valley through the middle of my soul”. Most songs, most artworks, most people, don’t get that feeling. These days, I don’t even really get it myself. Only occasionally do I understand how I felt back then--for example, right now, after listening to “I’m On Fire” for 20 minutes straight while I try to get these words out. I don’t like “I’m On Fire”, really, except for maybe those beautiful guitar clicks, but I love it. I love to sing its melodies; it’s a part of me now. It knows something about me, something about my history, that even I don’t really know anymore—maybe, honestly, that I try not to know.

Is this too sad of an ending for a series that's mostly just me being giddy about my favorite music? Yes, probably, but it still feels right to me. I love that Springsteen's music doesn't shy away from sadness; I dance to it anyway, sing to it anyway, and find comfort in it anyway. Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed my bruceposting (which I'm sure this won't be the end of, since I'm seeing him in concert in a few months)!

I've just realized my coping mechanism is reading angsty Jason & Bruce fics.

Just had the fun idea of the batfam having water bottles full of lazarus water that they carry around and like, them customizing them. Drawing on the metal in Damian's case, covering them in stickers in both Tim's and Steph's case, weaving a hand warmer for the handle, etc Just each of them having their own thermos of sorts for patrol and missions with the Justice League outside of Gotham.

Check out @phoenixcatch7 , this au is a combination of mine and hers (Possessed Doll Au) and you should go give her love <3

I have read a total of 0 Batman comics, but I hope and pray that every Robin has at least once. Called Bat the Man Dad. I think Dick is most likely to consciously, Damian is most likely to slip up, and Jason would mumble it 'cause he wants to say it, but he's too Badass™ to actually vocalize it around him. I'm unsure about the level of the other Robins, but that's my take.

So how does Bruce go from Master to Servant? Is it as simple as "died as part of a world changing event" or is it more like those theories about Ritsuka's journey making them a sort of living beast/servant by the end of it?

[Colin the computer voice] Good question!

I think it’d be the former camp. You ever see those posts about Guda that’re like, “they could become a Servant by virtue of saving the world and also the fact that most of humanity was dead at that point means enough people knew about Guda that it ‘technically’ counts as being a legend or important historical figure?” It’s like that.

And also, because I think it’s funny, you have unlocked my Doylist explanation for making my Mastersona a servant.

…

I’ve tried making a Servantsona before and I go through them like tissues. Yggdrasil, Magnus Olaffson, Gretchen, Dorian Gray… I eventually figured it’d be best to just take my usual self-insert and twist the circumstances a bit.

honestly, i don't know if it's canon accurate or not (i'm assuming it depends on individual beliefs and many many alternate timelines) but i like the idea of bruce never hitting dick before jason died. never. not once. i like the way it makes me look at the panel of dick curled in on himself, alone on the floor of that cave. there's the betrayal, because there's always that. the hurt, and shock. and the feeling that along with that boy who died in his colors, he's also lost his best friend. because bruce never would have hit him.