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starry-bi-sky · 4 months

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more clone^2 thoughts

you know who i just remembered ALSO has long hair? Vlad. Vlad Masters. Danny's worst enemy and biggest pain in the ass ever since he sent those vulture ghosts after his fucking dAD. Danny having long hair would make Vlad so inSUFFERABLE. Like look!! Proof that you are much better off as MY son. We have matching hair lengths! Come be my son! I will make you a halfa like me and we will become powerful allies together!

Danny almost chops it off out of spite. He ends up not doing it because he likes his hair long, actually, very much so and he's not growing it out again just because you're crazy! He's attempted to take a pair of scissors to Vlad's hair though -- THAT was a fight that got ugly. Danny's go-to threat whenever he sees him after that is that he's going to chop off vlad's hair when he's not looking - just you watch, Masters. He'll do it. HE'LL DO IT.

And if Danny wasn't keeping it a tight secret, he'd turn around and taunt Vlad about being a) a clone and b) a clone of BRUCE WAYNE. he'd say stuff like:

"How's it feel knowing my parents cloned a man richer than you"

"you're just mad that bruce wayne is more my dad than you'll ever be!"

"it could've been you that my parents accidentally cloned instead of Wayne, but instead you fucked off for twenty years instead!"

but also its a constant question Danny asks himself how he and no one else ever figured it out sooner that he was a clone. He doesn't understand how Vlad of all people didn't realize it when he went to college with the man with his parents and was also stinking rich, before remembering that he doubts Vlad remembers anyone who wasn't his parents in college, and has been a rich, recluse loser this entire time.

its a good thing though, danny's pretty sure vlad would attempt a hit on the man if he found out out of pure jealousy and indignant rage. And then he'd get his ass beat by Batman and his army of children.

All in all, Dany is a pure menace towards Vlad whenever he gets the chance, as is normal, and then Vlad's suffering gets doubled after he makes Ellie - of which she is even worse than Danny because she's the halfa that Danny Is NOt and thus has the powers to break into his house easy peasy and wreck shit. She steals his obsidian black card and goes on a shopping spree. This is a regular occurrence.

(and for anyone who isn't aware - Ellie is the same age as Danny in clone^2 bc i thought it'd be fun)

And then it gets tripled once Damian joins the family and gets caught up to speed on all of Vlad's tomfoolery and whoops, Damian's got better stealth skills than Danny and looks like Ellie has a partner in crime whenever they need to sneak into vlad's house to cause him grief.

Vlad's walls are the first canvas for Damian to test out his new spray paints on once he gets them :)

next up

Wes weston! i love this guy, he's so funny and he definitely knows danny is the Phantom in the clone^2 au. it's not as easy to figure out as it is in canon since its not just a simple colorswap, but perhaps he sees Danny taking off his mask after a daytime fight. and after that he becomes determined to reveal that quiet, strange fenton is the vigilante phantom.

he's putting some real,,, detectiveness? stalkerish? skills to use because catching photos of phantom is not as easy as it is if he were a halfa. He can't just snap a few dozen photos of fenton and phantom and then color compare the two of them either - Phantom wears a mask, and works primarily at night or in evenings, and typically avoids the living during the day. And he doesn't speak to the living either. Wes has to put in some extra work into his investigations and evidence.

He also makes the dumb mistake of cornering Danny in the bathroom one day early on and telling him he knows he's the Phantom -- now that Danny knows that Wes knows, he's going to be even more careful not to get caught. He puts in a little extra work in both Fenton and Phantom - another layer, perhaps a jacket, as Phantom, and baggier pants and boots he never wears as Fenton. His hood stays up in the daytime.

He was already putting in some extra effort to appear creepy and unsettling as Phantom - things like crouching low, tense movements, fluid movements. If he's perched on something he does a kinda-crawl like movement - think a mix between a bear and a gorilla crawl. It's weird, creepy. And he stares. Danny's mastered the art of not needing to blink for long periods of time, so if he sees you and sticks around he stares. It doesn't help that you can't see his eyes that well through his mask - its just two piercing green.

It helps endear him to ghosts and his enemies though - the annoying little human boy is engaging in ghost culture! That's eliciting some form of begrudging respect from his enemies.

And then compare that creepy, almost cryptid-like behavior to Fenton who, while considered a freak, really isn't anything more than just some dorky weirdo with occasional heart problems. He's kinda unsettling - he has those 'stares into soul' eyes - but its leveled by the fact that he's kinda just... dorky. It reads as normal, awkward kid behavior, and then gets disregarded completely as he gets older and it bleeds into 'very chill teenager'. Fenton being Phantom doesn't compute that much.

Paulina: you think Phantom is Fenton? Wes: I don't think, I know he is! I have proof-- Star: Just because they both have black hair doesn't mean they're the same, Wes. That's like saying Paulina and Manson are sisters because they also have black hair.

Wes's attempts to out him as Phantom means that Danny is a little more wary of him than he is in canon, since his vigilante identity isn't an entirely different ghost form its just him, so he has to be careful about where or when he takes off his mask in case Wes is around. Especially during daytime fights.

But other than that he has a lot of time messing with him. Wes is trying to convince his table group at lunch that Fenton = Phantom (again) and Danny just so happens to be within earshot of him and starts making fun of the idea.

"You think I'm Phantom?" and he's got the most disbelieving grin on his face that's only partially convincing. "That's totally bogus, man. The Phantom famously doesn't get along with my parents, why would I be a ghost hunter and not work with them?"

He has this most shit-eating, delighted look in his eyes that Wes knows is pure manic glee at being able to mess with him and get away with it. Wes is going to strangle him.

"Besides, dude, did you forget I have a heart condition? I can't be chasing around ghosts - my heart would give out from all that running and jumping."

Although Danny can get really serious at the flip of a coin if need be - especially with Wes when he gets too pushy about him being Phantom. A notable instance is when Wes cornered him in an empty bathroom to again talk about him being Phantom.

Except Danny, who had been working on a really difficult cold case about the death of a child, and hadn't gotten much sleep in the last 72 hours, plus a plethora of other stuff (like recently acquiring Damian, fighting ghosts, etc), wasn't in the mood to entertain him. It ended with Weston getting pinned to the wall and lowkey threatened by Danny. He apologizes for it afterwards but it's not forgotten.

Additional note: Wes Weston having a crush on Danny Fenton is a hilarious trope to me so Wes absolutely has a crush on Danny and the only one in denial about it is him. Everyone else - except Danny because he's more focused on the fact that Wes knows his identity, and has other things to worry about - knows about it, and everyone chalks up his obsession with Danny as being part of said crush.

Wes' friend: you know usually when you have a crush on someone you normally confess, maybe ask them out, pine from afar....

Wes: i dont--

Wes's friend: not accuse him of being the local ghost-fighting vigilante. Seriously, wes! His parents are ghost hunters!

Wes: i do not have a crush

Wes's friend: and ghosts aren't real! everyone knows that's a lie!

next up

Dan! Or Dante, but i'll call him Dan for the time being. Even if I dislike the name with a passion. Much like Wrath from my Childhood Friends au, Dan here is pretty different from his canon counterpart. Mostly because I wanted to experiment with Dan and different interpretations of him, and I thought; hey, where no better than an au where Danny has no powers?

so, dan? Dan is not a combination of Danny and Vlad's ghost halves -- now, don't get me wrong, danny still ends up under vlad's custody care after the death of his family, but he just doesn't fuse with Vlad's ghost.

So, what happened? What happened is that Vlad convinces a grieving Danny that he should let him make him a halfa (despite the fact that he has no idea how) because the he could go find his family in the ghost zone. Danny is in no mental state for any kind of experiments, but his hope and want to see his family and friends again gets him to agree.

It backfires. Vlad doesn't make Danny a halfa, he just ends up killing him completely. Danny comes back instantly as a ghost however, and enraged over being lied to, betrayed, and murdered, ends up killing Vlad in furious cold blood. He doesn't fuse with his ghost half, there's no ghost half to fuse with.

So a grieving ghost, Danny flees into the ghost zone. And, in this iteration, doesn't end up destroying the world. So how does TUE end up happening? Well, ten years later - with Danny remaining a forever 14 year old ghost - Dan ends up finding out about time travel. He finds out a way to travel back into the past, and he does.

So he can take over his past self's life. Danny just thinks he's fighting a weird doppleganger ghost, but ends up getting overshadowed. It's like being in a weird limbo, and Danny's not really sure what's happening - but his friends figure something out. After all, its been ten years since dan saw his friends, something has to give.

And that episode happens. Danny ends up meeting clockworth, beats Dan. But, well, it's not really happily ever after - somewhat. Ehh.. sorta. Danny's been traumatized by Dan's overshadowing - making him realize that despite everything, there are things ghosts can do that danny simply cannot and he needs to prepare for it. Onset paranoia, anyone?

Dan tells them his whole tragic backstory - there's a chance for redemption here, for him. For forgiveness. Not immediately, not yet, but its there. And he doesn't want to go back to the future - he's alone there. He's tired of being alone.

But he ends up being convinced - he needs to learn to look forward, not cling back. He can build himself up again, find new family. He doesn't have to be alone. So Dan goes back to the future.

"But come tell me if Vlad's giving you trouble --" and he smiles something wicked, "I'd be happy to handle him again"

and finally

not so much as any concrete thoughts as it is just me being emotional over Danny and Damian's brotherhood in this au and also Danny's hands. Again.

lIKE.. I put it in the tags of my reblog of my "danny's scarred hands' ficlet but im putting it here and its just?? Danny grabbing the blade of Damian's sword. Him grabbing the sword multiple times despite the fact that he knows it will hurt, that he will hurt himself. That he will keep hurting himself until Damian himself stops.

its just like??? whats it mean to spill your own blood just so that this little boy you've just met won’t have to ever again. he doesn't know any english and he is hurting you and yet you take him home and get him new clothes. he runs away and you go looking for him, every single time. you teach yourself arabic first so that you can converse with him.

this boy is a clone and so are you. you're a clone of his father he's a clone of your son - by nature of your existence this is your child. except its not your child, you don't have one, its just a little boy who happens to share the same dna as you. and you take him home and he becomes your little brother.

what's it mean when its you whose been hurt rather than him? whats it mean when you’d hurt yourself again just so that he can start to heal, so that he knows that he’s worth it? you cut your hands on his blade, catch its swing, just so this boy can know, can learn, that there’s someone who will bleed for him. that there's someone who will scar their hands just to make sure that you wont scar yours.

you’re a bleeding heart and its spilling out onto your palms. you take bloody fingers and wrap it around your little brother’s and say "its okay. it’s okay. you’re safe. no one will hurt you here. i promise. i wont let them. no one will hurt you so long as i'm around."

"put the sword down. i can show you how. let me show you how."

and damian in this au just reminds me of the song "eight" by sleeping at last. like?? the lYRICS. he is sO "eight" coded

'show me how to lay my sword down for long enough to let you through.' 'here i am. pry me open. what do you want to know?' 'im just a kid who grew up scared enough to hold the door shut and bury my innocence' 'but here's a map. here's a shovel. here's my achilles' heel. im all in palms out. im at your mercy now and im ready to begin. i am strong enough to let you in.'

"by nature of our existence we are father and son, but by choice we are brothers. we are brothers we are brothers we are brothers. and i love you"

#dpxdc #dp x dc #dp x dc crossover #dpxdc crossover #dpdc #clone^2 #danny fenton is not the ghost king #dp dc #dp dc crossover #dpxdc au #dpdc au #ITS JUST. THEM. IM SORRY BUT ITS THEM AND I LOVE THEM.#damian's guilt of hurting danny and the consistent conversations they have from that. danny always tells damian he forgives him.#'i hurt you' 'i know' 'im sorry' 'i know'#'one day i hope you forgive yourself just as much as i have forgiven you.' 'repeat after me: its not your fault'#'youre my brother and i hurt you and im sorry. i love you.'#i should get around to making a post about the batfam meeting them but i just!!! I love damian and danny i love their dynamic #and i know that i was the one who decided that its years before they meet the batfam after meeting each other but its still just a choice #that im stil so happy about because they become brothers! they meet the batfam and they're expecting baby damian to be like how damian was #when he arrived in the manor but he's not. he's not. he wears funny graphic tees and his older brother is bruce's clone and its so clear #that they love each other. bby dames steals his brother's flannels and gets chased around by him. and they roughhouse like brothers do #and his older brother is bruce's clone and he throws damian over his shoulders and calls him 'dames' and 'dami' and 'my boy' and its so #so obvious that this clone of bruce utterly adores damian.#and i had the idea before writing this that damian's first english word is 'star' and he turns to danny and calls him star when he wants #his attention for something. he points at him and says 'star' and he doesn't do that much anymore now that he knows english #but its one of the first signs of him trusting danny when he first arrived.

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weiyjling · 1 month

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Dick: I invite you to my home.

Dick: I teach you the joys of acrobatics.

Dick: I’m forced to wait an hour for bagels I didn’t even want.

Dick: And then I come home to find you chewing on my brother’s face.

#dick grayson #nightwing #dc #Jason: I kissed like a princess.#jayroy #royjay #batman #batfam incorrect quotes #incorrect quotes #incorrect dc quotes #incorrect nightwing quotes #source: icarly #this could be any ship dynamic #but i wrote this thinking about jayroy

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spoilers-ahead · 9 months

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okay!! now that it’s not 2am for me, i’m going to post my selkie!jason todd hc’s straight up au apparently!

(uh. this was supposed to just be a list of hc’s but i got slightly,,,, carried away)

his selkie skin looks like an oversized red hoodie in his human form, and is just warm enough to help him survive new england winters.

when the summer heat becomes unbearable, he slings the hoodie around his waist

alternatively, he just coasts it out underwater. perks of living in a coastal city!

willis todd was a selkie. he used to tell jason stories of what it was like to swim through the big, wide ocean. of how freeing it felt. how different it is, from the smoggy, heavy air of gotham --- different, but both theirs, in their own right.

but to be honest, jason doesn’t remember much about the stories he was told, or really, anything about willis --- he had been in and out of blackgate for most of jason’s life, working for two-face to try and make ends meet, before dying.

what jason mostly remembers, are the warnings. don’t let anybody know you’re a selkie. don’t let anybody find your skin. they will find it, and they will use it to control you. even decades later, jason would still remember those warnings.

catherine is the one who teaches him how to swim, who helps him trial-and-error his way into putting his skin on, and learn how to make the transition seamless.

after she dies, jason spends three months as a seal, to just... exist. forget.

although jason technically lives on the streets, whenever he can;t find food, whenever he can’t find somewhere warm to sleep, whenever just being human becomes too unbearable, he spends the night as a seal. he ends up spending more time in the ocean, than on land.

that’s not to say he’s very good at being a seal --- he barely knows how to swim, has to learn how to fish the hard way.

when bruce finds jason stealing his car tires, he marvels over how nice jason’s hoodie is, soft and fluffy even after all of jason’s time on the streets, especially given the condition jason is in, ribs showing from malnutrition, and the worn and raggedy shape of the rest of his stuff.

jason is skittish when he goes to live in the manor, even after a few weeks. he always adopts an expression particularly similar to a cornered wild animal around alfred in particular, alfred, who keeps on trying to take his hoodie away, purportedly to wash it.

alfred eventually gives up on trying to force jason to wash it --- he figures that as jason becomes more comfortable living at the manor, he’ll wind up telling them why he’s so protective over that hoodie, and they can work something out then.

whenever wayne manor overwhelms jason with how big and how decadently expensive all the decor is, jason runs away, run to the ocean.

jason doesn’t actually end up telling alfred and bruce that he’s a selkie --- bruce just has a ridiculous amount of motion alarms, which are triggered every time jason ran off. he had followed jason the third night, and saw him transform.

bruce doesn’t tell jason that he knows, assuming that jason kept this a secret because he didn’t fully trust either of them. he would later learn that he was right in this assumption (a rare win for bruce in terms of emotional awareness)

except jason doesn’t fully trust either of them, even after a few months. bruce impulsively decides to do a few things --- a) tell jason about batman and robin and his crime-fighting secret identity, and b) tell jason he already knows about him being a selkie.

jason is absolutely bamboozled by the fact that bruce knows, and yet hasn’t tried to take his hoodie to control him, or to stop him from playing in the ocean for a few hours.

in fact, (under alfred’s encouragement) bruce offers to take him to the ocean during the day, so he can get “a proper night’s rest that a growing young boy such as himself would need”

jason remembers what his father told him, to never trust anyone, never let his guard down. but bruce has known about jason being a selkie for so long, and he didn’t take his hoodie or try anything. of course he can trust bruce.

and when he tries on the robin costume for the first time, it fits perfectly. just like his hoodie, his second skin. it fits just like magic.

oh, it’s a little loose in some places, the legacy of dick fucking grayson a little heavy sometimes, but he’ll grow into it. he’ll make himself, if he has to.

also, jason finds the fact that even though he’s a friggin’ selkie, his callsign is a bird (a robin, no less) incredibly ironic and funny

being a selkie is actually so useful for vigilantehood. the amount of people who talk freely, openly, and loudly about their drug smuggling plans near the ports is quite frankly, ridiculous.

honestly, towards the end of his robin years, jason remains genuinely surprised nobody catches on to him or his tactics yet. bruce is very proud.

even though jason is safe, has been safe for three years, and trusts bruce with his life, his skin, and everything, old habits are hard to break. so he has his hoodie on when he goes to find sheila.

and anyways, he wants to see if sheila is a selkie too. he’s taking biology right now, and they’re learning about punnett squares. jason’s never met another selkie before, other than willis who he barely remembers. there’s a possibility that sheila knows something, anything, so he has to try.

sheila gets a glint in her eyes when jason mentions that he’s a selkie, tells him that while she’s not one herself, she’s familiar with the myth. she has long suspected that willis was a selkie, she tells him, and she’s glad to have confirmation.

jason positively vibrates with excitement, can’t wait to ask, to pester his mother (mother!) with questions upon questions until.

until.

sheila doesn’t do anything after she gives him to the joker. she just smokes and smokes. and she doesn’t tell the joker about his hoodie, despite how it would have been much easier for the joker to destroy him that way. much more painful too.

small mercies, he supposes, in between hacking coughs that brings blood bubbling up his lips.

after he dies, his hoodie is ripped and in tatters from the crowbar, with burns along the edges from the bomb. bruce has to carefully peel it off his body.

when jason was alive, his magic kept the hoodie in perfect condition, always. even when the rest of him was covered head-to-toe in mud, or dripping sludge from the nasty gotham sewers.

bruce stares at the same hoodie, blood-soaked and mangled, so incredibly dissonant from how he remembered it on jason, when he was bright, whole, and alive.

he can’t stand it. the hoodie that was so precious to jason, that was jason, at the core of him, in this state. dirty and ripped and devoid of the magic jason had exuded.

in a moment of desperation, late at night, bruce asks alfred to teach him how to sew. he doesn’t dare to practice on jason’s beloved hoodie --- instead, he starts with the suits in his closet, grabbing the first one he sees, regardless of price. rips a hole and sews it back together over and over until he perfects his technique.

and then he washes the fabric gently, using baby fabric cleanser and scrubbing for hours upon hours until the last traces of the deep-set brown stain from jason’s blood washes down the drain.

he painstakingly sews the scraps of fabric back together with a red thread, carefully sourced to match the hoodie to try and make it flow seamlessly like it used to.

it doesn’t work, not exactly. despite his best efforts, the creases bruce had carefully sewn together are prominent and thick like scars, littering the soft fabric.

so he gives up. he hangs it over the grandfather clock entrance to the cave in his study. brings it with him every time he visits jason’s grave, because he doesn’t ever want to keep jason’s hoodie away from him, but he also can’t bear for it to get ruined.

dick visits him. a rare occurrence, these days.

dick yells at him, as he is wont to do.

these days, it feels like they spend more time angry at each other than not. dick says that this isn’t right. isn’t fair to anybody, not to alfred, not to himself, definitely not to jason. he rants, jason deserves to be remembered as he was in life, not frozen in death.

perhaps he is right. bruce is not unaware of the state of violent, cutting stasis he is in, this putrefaction of his life. and he is certainly not unaware of how it is affecting the people around him. dick. alfred. the neighbor’s kid, the one who wants to be robin.

bruce tries. not for himself, but for tim. for alfred, for dick. even for stephanie brown, who sometimes, when she smirks just right, or says something with just the right twang, he swears he can see jason in her.

he still can’t bear to put the hoodie away, because jason deserved better than to be forgotten, so he folds it gently and places it in his closet instead.

he also can’t bear to look at it for very long, so he forces himself to every single day.

it’s different from the glass case that houses robin’s tattered suit in the cave --- that, is a reminder of how he failed robin. this, this is salt in a constant, stabbing, festering would, reminding him of how he failed his son.

it was stephanie, that eventually helped him figure out what to do with the hoodie. when she was young, young enough to cry at ripped pants and skinned knees, young enough that her mother hadn’t touched the drugs yet, her mother would dry up her tears, give her a hug and a kiss on the forehead, before patching her pants up.

what not many people know, is that before crystal brown set her mind on becoming a nurse, she wanted to be an artist, first. and so she grabs her old set of embroidery needles, and stitched little designs. dogs and cats. stars and planets. tools and gadgets.

bruce doesn’t react, doesn’t even move, even as stephanie finishes her story. she hangs there awkwardly for a second, stares up at jason’s suit, waiting for him to respond, before shuffling towards the exit of the cave.

thank you, spoiler, bruce manages to croak out.

ah, yeah, she says, shrugging lightly while slouching in on herself, any time, boss. she walks out, and bruce watches her go from the reflection on the darkened computer.

that night, he takes out jason’s hoodie, smooths it out, grabs his threads, and stitches.

he stitches on constellations, argo navis, for jason’s namesake in the greek myths he had loved so much. a tiny seal, playing with beach balls. little books, with quotes on the sides. a robin, big and bold.

he tries to make it as true to jason as possible, not just in death and in bruce’s memories, but as he was in life.

jason wakes up abruptly.

he wakes up in a coffin, cold, alone, and with a gaping hole in his chest. getting dipped in the lazarus pit only made it worse, only made him all the more aware of what he was missing, all the more conscious of it.

he doesn’t bother trying to learn how to swim with two arms and two legs, instead of two fins and a tail. it doesn’t feel the same. it only reminds him of what he’s lost.

sometimes, on sleepless nights that happen more often than not, he wonders what would have happened if he still had a hoodie, still could swim.

if he still was robin.

and he doesn’t have access to the cave anymore, or to the titan’s tower, or the watchtower, and his memory of the past is still patchy and shitty in some places.

so in a burst of impulsivity fueled by the person he no longer is, he prints out photos of robin’s costume from the internet and recreates it on his own.

if his skin is gone, then fine. fine! he’s perfectly perfunctorily aware that nothing about this resurrection of his is natural. if he doesn’t think too much about it, he’ll be alright. his hoodie, his skin, that was something he was born with, a birthright that died with him.

but robin, robin was something that he helped shape. robin was something that he worked for, changed himself for.

and the makeshift robin suit --- it doesn’t fit him, not anymore. no, it feels wrong, like a child playing with their parent’s suit. or --- he realizes, perhaps more accurately, like an adult realizing they no longer fit in their favorite clothes.

and --- and --- what was the point of it all? what was the point, of trying to make bruce proud of him, of getting dick’s approval, of trying to futilely save people over and over again from the same gallery of supervillains who keep on escaping from prison?!

and what was the point of carving out a space for himself if the joker was just going to beat him out of it, and if tim drake was going to insert himself in the hole he left behind?

and then the next thing he knows he’s in titan’s tower hitting tim drake over and over again because who let him? who let him take jason’s role as a son, as a brother, as a hero? how dare he?

but when he’s slit tim’s throat and torn the ‘R’ off his chest, jason doesn’t feel any better. the robin suit still doesn’t fit. his hoodie’s still gone.

he’s starting to think it never will, not again.

sometimes, when he gets tired enough to let his mind wander, he wonders what happened to his suit.

he’s pretty sure he died with it, so either the hoodie is with the joker, batman, or... gone entirely. (it’s not like they found willis’ skin after he died. maybe selkie skins just disappear in a cloud of sea foam once they die, or some little mermaid shit like that)

it’s a cold comfort, that nobody can manipulate him now. nobody can control him --- not even batman.

(bruce had thought about it. when he first had his suspicious regarding who the red hood was, before he knew there was any trace of the son he once had left. he thought about using the hoodie, using jason’s selkie skin to coerce him, at least to stop murdering people, to stop hurting their family.)

(he would never go that far, in retrospect, or at least, he doesn’t think he could ever. to do that to jason, betray his trust so thoroughly and completely... but it would be a lie to say that he didn’t consider it.)

bruce reflects on this as jason reveals himself, the joker tied up at his feet with a gun pressed to his head, and venom spitting from his son’s mouth.

but when he lifts the batarang to hit jason’s gun, or wrist, or anything that’ll force him to drop the gun, he realizes that his hands are shaking.

and when he throws the batarang, he knows a millisecond after he’s let go, that he’s miscalculated the ricochet.

so when jason escapes that night, bruce knows he’s fucked up.

jason goes off the maps, completely. bruce doesn’t know where he is, if he’s safe, if he even made it out of the explosion that night.

it takes weeks. weeks for bruce to track jason down, from meticulously documenting the dropped threads of where the red hood was pulling strings in the gotham underworld behind the scenes, to tracking security cameras with facial recognition.

once bruce manages find where he’s staying, make sure he’s safe, he knows what he wants to do. and, he knows what he needs to do.

jason gets a package in the mail, five weeks after his disasterous meeting with batman and the joker. unmarked, unsigned, no return address.

when jason opens the box gingerly and carefully, he holds on to his skin for the first time in years. and then, and then, and then --- something right slots into place. his fingers brushed gently over the tiny spotted seal he knows he used to look like, the books he remembered ranting to bruce about for hours on end.

the robin, on the top left, over his heart, big enough to have changed him, yet small enough to not define him.

it’s not perfect. it doesn’t even fix anything, not entirely. he still fights with bruce most times he sees him, tries to punch dick in the face, steadfastly ignores tim and steph the entire time.

but it’s something. it’s something, and the next time nightwing, batman, spoiler, and robin fight a gang on the docks, the red hood gives them a helping hand before jumping back into the ocean and swimming away.

fin!

wow this got long

#jason todd #bruce wayne #alfred pennyworth #batfam #selkie!jason #dick grayson #stephanie brown #tim drake #catherine todd #willis todd #that one selkie!jason au #i swear i will turn this into an actual fic one day #anyways about the using embroidery to fix ripped clothes thing all i can say is WATCH HI MOM #it's SUCH a good movie and i guarantee it will DEVASTATE you in ALL your little mommy issues glory #like you think the batfamily comics/fanfics have an amazing nuanced complicated take on the parent-child dynamic?#this movie will BLOW your fucking SOCKS off. and best part of all: you can watch it WITH said parent #and it won't be as horrible of an experience as showing them encanto/turning red/eeaao!#in fact your parent will probably like the movie too and be reminded of THEIR own mommy issues :D #admittedly it's slightly different from the examples i listed above bc it's more abt what it's like to never reach ur parent's expectation #rather than an exploration of complicated parenting but it's still very relatable and very very good #the best part is you can find it all for free on youtube. also note that i mean the recent chinese movie not the old 70s movie #asteria's fics #i'm never writing a fucking flash fic on TUMBLR of all text editors again #shouldve written this out on a google doc first but i genuinely did not think this would get so long T.T #you can probably tell from the first three (3) bullet points that this was supposed to be a hc list before... it stopped being a hc list #guys i started writing this at 12 PM #IT'S NOW 9 AWOGEJAWOIG #my writing

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strawberrytalia · 7 months

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actually i love bruce and duke’s dynamic because everytime it’s essentially just:

Bruce telling him about this very unhinged plan he has

And Duke displaying one ounce of concern, and then immediately agreeing

#batfam #bruce wayne #duke thomas #okay but on a deeper level #i do enjoy the night and day contrast #and how the trust between these two has such a long way to go still #but it’s been built up so much #and it’s clear that bruce has like so much faith in duke #i also like to think on some subconscious level bruce sees duke as not only a source of guilt #but also proof of a second chance #and duke likewise has a lot to be disappointed in batman for #but his respect for bruce’s willingness to be batman and his message is so high #and ugh i’m bad at wording these things #but i like their dynamic a lot #batman #the signal #batfamily

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silent-wolf · 3 months

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the day ppl realise tam was one of tim's best love interest is the day pigs can fly

#like shes hot a badass and doesnt take tims shit #like their dynamic was so cute but then dc fucked everything up #need them to reunite again #tim drake #batman #batfam #robin #red robin #tam fox #timtam

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boyfriendgideon · 10 months

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as yr favorite local jason todd fan sometimes i get so fed up with the apparent inability of most dc comic writers to write a class conscious narrative about him.

and yes, i know that comics are a very ephemeral and constantly evolving and self-conflicting medium.

and yes, i know they’re a profit-driven art medium created in a capitalistic society, so there are very few times where comics are going to be created solely out of the desire to authentically and carefully and deliberately represent a character and take them from one emotional narrative place to another, because dc cares about profit and sometimes playing it safe is what sells.

and yes, i know comics and other forms of art reflect and recreate the society within which they were conceived as ideas, and so the dominant societal ideas about gender and race and class and so on are going to be recreated within comics (and/or will be responded to, if the writer is particularly societally conscious).

but jesus christ. you (the writer/writers) have a working class character who has been homeless, who has lost multiple parents, who has been in close proximity to someone struggling with addiction, who has had to steal to survive, who may have (depending on your reading of several different moments across different comics created by different people) been a victim of csa, who has clearly (subtextually) struggled with his mental health, who was a victim of a violent murder, and who has an entirely distinct and unique perspective on justice that has evolved based on his lived experiences.

and instead of delving into any of that, or examining the myriad of ways that classism in the writers’ room and the editors’ room and the readers’ heads affected jason’s character to make sure you’re writing him responsibly, or giving him a plotline where his views on what justice looks like are challenged by another working class character, or allowing him to demonstrate actual autonomy and agency in deciding what relationships he wants to have with people who he loves but sees as having failed him in different ways, or thinking carefully about what his having chosen an alias that once belonged to his murderer says about his decision-making and motivations, you keep him stuck in a loop of going by the red hood, addressing crime by occupying a position of relative power that perpetuates crime & harm rather than ever getting at the root causes, and seesawing between a) agreeing with his adoptive family entirely about fighting nonlethally in ways that are often inconsistent with his apparent motivations or b) disagreeing and experiencing unnecessarily brutal and violent reactions from his adoptive father as if that kind of violence isn’t the kind of thing he experienced as a child and something bruce himself is trying to prevent jason from perpetuating. because a comic with red hood, quips, high stakes, and familial drama sells.

it doesn’t matter if it keeps jason trapped, torn between an unanswered moral and philosophical question, a collection of identities that no longer fit him, and a family that accepts him circumstantially. it doesn’t matter if jason’s characterization is so utterly inconsistent that the only way to mesh it together is to piece different aspects of different titles and plotlines together like a jigsaw. it doesn’t matter if you do a disservice to his character, because in the end you don’t want to transform him or even understand him deeply enough to identify what makes him compelling and focus on that.

and i love jason!!!!! i love him. and i think about the stories we could have, if quality and art and doing justice to the character were prioritized as much as selling a title and having a dark and brooding batfam member besides bruce just to be the black sheep character are prioritized. and i just get a little sad.

#jason todd #jason todd meta #red hood #batfam #batman #dc comics #comic analysis #classism #tw: csa mention #maybe someday half of the most intriguing and nuanced aspects of his character will be touched upon #red hood outlaw 51-52 had some cool moments wrt jason + class + hometown friends + systems of power but. that was a two issue arc #and even then it was admittedly messy #GOD i want him to be three dimensional and well rounded and well used #even if a writer wrote a fucking. filler comic for an annual or smthn exploring what jason does outside of being red hood #keep the name if u want. have him have deliberately taken the name of his killer and twisted it until ppl from his city know rh #as a protector of kids and the poor and sex workers and so on. that WORKS. but show him connecting w his community #have him get involved in mutual aid. have him do something when he’s not out as red hood at night. let us see jason & barbara interact more #or jason and steph !!!!!!!! or another positive but complicated dynamic (he has a lot of those)#i just. i think that his stagnancy makes me fucking sad. i liked some aspects of task force z. felt like it ended too soon tho #FUCK the joker lets unpack his self concept & have him be a real person outside of vigilanteism (?) and vengeance #i liked some aspects of the cheer arc in batman urban legends mostly bc he had SOME agency and bc he wasn’t completely flat #even tho i hate the retconning of robin jason being angry and moody and so on #part of the problem is we don’t see him too too often for more than semi brief appearances so im so happy to see him i’ll just accept it #love the idea of a nightwing & red hood team up comic. hate that tom taylor a) wrote it and b) gave jason that stupid ass line abt justice #u think this man trusts cops ????? or the legal system !????????? BITCH.#get jason todd into like a sociology / gender and intersectionality / feminist studies class NOWWWWW #ok im done im sleepy and going to watch nimona. thx for reading to anyone who did #PLS anyone who reads this let me know what u think im frothing at the mouth rn #wes.txt #mine

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swinging-stars-from-satellites · 1 year

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so here's the thing. Cass's favorite brother is probably Tim. he's her little guy, her sweet cheese, her good time boy. they're both very similar to Bruce in a lot of ways, but more than that, they find it easy to be around each other. Tim is more quiet than the others, which Cass appreciates, but he's also fascinating to watch because there's constantly a thousand things going on beneath the surface of him. Cass and Tim are masters of parallel play, but only and primarily with each other. Tim is quiet when Cass wants to be quiet or talks when she needs to talk, and if she doesn't have the words for something he never so much as bats an eye (even Dick bluescreens sometimes trying to figure her words out), he just helps her find the right ones. Tim can read her almost as well as she can read him, just slower and not trained into him, it's just how he is. he looks at her and tries to figure out how she works, the way he does with everyone, a way most people don't. it makes her feel seen the same way she sees, and that's valuable to her.

another thing is that Tim is also, in all honesty, Jason's favorite brother. like it's almost counterintuitive considering how they first really met, but hey — brothers forged in blood, right? there's some wild poetry to it and they Get each other on a level the others don't really bc they're the middle children, 2nd and 3rd and always afraid of being rejected. but they've got each other. Tim is Jay's favorite because he's so incredibly forgiving (to be welcomed back to the family by the kid he nearly killed? the kid he hated? INSANE.) and because he doesn't judge. (Jay is Tim's favorite bc he's chill when Dick or B can be smothering sometimes. Jason isn't the one who lost a brother and a son, he's the one who was lost, so he's not quite so afraid of losing. yes, he's protective, but not overwhelmingly so.) they have an instinctive kind of brotherhood where they balance each other out, tempering each other's worse tendencies and bolstering the better ones without having to talk about it.

the third thing: Cass really does not like Jason. she has the no-kill rule in her heart even before she had words to explain it, and it's different than with Bruce because she's lived it. she's lived the reason why they have that rule. and Jason has too, but come out on the other side, what Cass considers the wrong side of a worldview completely different than her own. Jason kills, he breaks the law written in her soul and in their adoptive father's, and no one stops him. she can't comprehend it, and she will never accept it. she rarely uses his name, rarely interacts with him at all if she can help it because much as she wants to start a fight, it would hurt Bruce if she did and she doesn't want that. she just calls him Hood, most of the time. if they absolutely have to work together, she does what needs done and leaves.

so. Cass hates Jason. and Jason hates being hated. as far as the principle goes, he can get why Cass doesn't like him, but she's loath to even be around him and that bothers him. she's just this side of being actively hostile, meanwhile Jason is honestly trying his best not to tick her off but it's really hard when he gets glared at by possibly the most intimidating Bat every time he's at home. the same way there's a difference between Bruce and Batman (they put away masks at home, or at least they try to), there's a difference between Jason and the Red Hood. but Cass, determined, rock-solid Cass, refuses to accept that. it's not a good situation, especially when Tim gets in the middle of it, because both Cass and Jason love Tim but hate each other and Tim is just tired and wants his siblings to get along and see, this is why he prefers one on one time to family gatherings.

because at some point something happens and Tim gets hurt, maybe captured or outnumbered (as capable as he is, even a great strategist and skilled fighter can be overwhelmed at times) while out on patrol, and Oracle, sitting in front of her computer array, sighs and rubs her temples and opens up a communications channel to the only two Bats available to assist — Red Hood and Black Bat. she tells them what's up, gives them Red Robin's location, and then dips back out of the channel because she is not going to spend the rest of the night listening to palpable silence from Cass and increasingly frustrated questioning from Jason. she's not paid enough for that.

so Cass and Jason HAVE to work together. HAVE to team up to save their mutual favorite sibling (who, for what it's worth, has no clue he's ANYONE'S favorite). and neither of them is pleased with this turn of events, on multiple counts — 1, Tim is hurt. 2, Cass hates/at least strongly dislikes Jason. 3, Jason has tried everything to make peace with her and is honestly feeling a little bit desperate about it at this point because he has tried EVERYTHING, so now he's just right back at aggression. it's a situation that really can't have a good outcome for everyone, because Cass and Jason's mutual dislike for each other is at odds with their mutual love for Tim and both of them arrive at the same conclusion: all they can do is work for the best outcome for their little brother.

Tim, who has only been lightly stabbed and could have probably gotten by with just one person for backup instead of two, let alone THESE two, is both exasperated by the turn of events, and just plain glad that someone came for him. he's bleeding and hurting and watching from the alley floor as Cass stares (glares) at Jason, who's trying to figure out how to get a shot in that will give Tim a way out without, yknow, shooting his brother in the process.

and then Cass just swoops down and between her insane skills and the intimidation factor of a bat with a full-face mask the entire situation is diffused before Jason has a chance to shoot anybody, which is a better outcome than Tim expected. Jason grapples down as Cass is finishing up with the last few bad guys and she turns around and starts glaring through the mask again. the problem is, she loves Tim. he's her favorite brother, the one most like her and most like their father. but Jason loves Tim too, and Cass can see it as soon as she looks, really looks to see it. and it's so, so obvious when she sees Jason's bloodstained, scarred hands carefully bandaging Tim's (slight) stab wound and the fact that Jay pulled off his helmet as soon as it was safe to and is talking and grinning and keeping a steady eye on Tim because everyone knows that Tim plays down his injuries often and you have to watch him, because he's smart enough to hide things unless you really know him. and Jason knows him. and Cass can see that. and as much as she doesn't like Jason, as much as she's possessive of Tim, she softens for just a minute.

not that she'd ever tell anyone, and Tim was too distracted and half-foggy from blood loss to see it in her at the moment. Cass still doesn't like Jay. Jay is still utterly frustrated by the fact that she won't give him a chance. Tim is still annoyed by all of this and complains to Babs about it (bc Steph just laughs and says all three of them need to suck it up and move on, which is TRUE, but unhelpful) any chance he gets.

it isn't until an Arkham breakout, not the worst they've seen but obviously not good news, when Jason gets badly hurt and Tim (who was with him at the time) gets Really Scary, like full-on not moving a muscle, staring down the man who did it with such intensity that it feels like he could kill with only his masked eyes, sharp and suddenly absolutely terrifying to anyone who doesn't know him, that something really clicks for Cass. because she slips in as Tim coldly, calculatingly shatters the guy's kneecaps just as thoroughly as Jason's bullets would have done and then his rigid intensity falls away and he's a kid terrified that his brother is hurt.

Cass sees the way Jason is with Tim and she can't quite reconcile that caring with all his killing but she knows, because she can SEE it, that Jay cares about Tim much the same way she does. and then she sees how Tim acts when Jason is hurt, the scary sharp side of her little brother that only comes out when he's very, very afraid and very, very determined, and she sees the way he loves his older brother and... she can't deny that either.

and maybe Cass will never LIKE Jason, maybe there will always be some tension between them, but. she doesn't call him only "Hood" all the time, anymore, and Jason is capable of recognizing that tiny detail as her version of a peace offering. Tim is just glad they're not yelling at each other (or Cass's silent staring version of yelling) all the time. maybe it's a whole mess, but hey, they're working on it. as long as there's love, somewhere, there's something. (there's family)

#this was originally a meta post but it spiralled. like. a lot spiralled.#i just think they should have a contentious little thing going on. sibling rivalry but they don't consider themselves siblings #like it's funny but also fascinating. they're narrative foils!! they're their fathers precious children! they have #directly opposing worldviews and mindsets!!!#this could be so deep but also. SO comedic #i need to write the stupid little batfam road trip fic in my head bc the ensemble dynamics are SO FUN #Lu rambles #meta finding tag #batfam #cass cain #jason todd #tim drake #i didn't proofread this if it has typos I'll find it once it's too late and it's already been reblogged. as usual 😂

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puppetmaster13u · 7 months

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Meat Marionette #11?

Thinkin about the rogues in this Au, and like, the difference between their relationship with the bats vs this Au.

For example, Selina. I’ll admit I take a bit of inspiration from the 2022 movie and mix it with comic depictions along with the different cartoons, which honestly isn’t too different from each other by too much. Now, I don’t think that Catwoman would flirt with this version of Batman, what with his body being a meat puppet that is visibly not human and off putting. There’s also the fact that she would have been an early-ish rogue of his, at least in order of encounters. Which means that she probably encounters the Bat for the first time while Bruce was still getting used to said gifted body, which in turn was probably terrifying. So there’s still a cat and mouse game happening, but it’s more akin to Selina doing her darn best to avoid the Bat no matter what, because to her it isn’t above trying to kill. It’s like seeing a lion where you figure you’re safe at this distance, until it starts moving and you realize that you are definitely not far enough away.

Another rogue that I am thinking of is Harvey and Two-Face (Which DC, give Two-Face a proper name :/ he’s his own dude even if they share a body). Harvey was best friends with Bruce, hell they were practically high-school sweethearts in some cases! And Bruce still visits him in Arkham, canonically still talks and interacts with both his friend and TF. Now if anyone is going to notice the changes to Bruce, it’s going to be Harvey. He’s going to be the first to notice how Bruce’s movements are now dangerous and downright predatory, with too much grace even for a dancer or martial artist. There’s something familiar about that movement, and Harvey isn’t an idiot, TF isn’t one either. They know there’s something wrong with Bruce even if he insists he’s fine. In canon Harvey straight up broke down and cried when he found out Bruce was Batman, so I’m wondering what their reaction to this version of the bat would be…

There’s also rogues like the Riddler and the Joker who are downright obsessed with Batman, but would they still be with this one? I could see Joker slowly becoming obsessed as the creatures continue to thwart him over and over again, but I’m still rotating Riddler.

But y’know who would definitely be obsessed with the batclan?

Scarecrow. The man is obsessed with studying fear, with the effects it has and how to cause it. So the bats, who bring terror wherever they go, with something about them continuously tingling at the back of ones’ more instinctive mind that this is something to fear? He would be utterly enthralled, he’d need to know more, he’d need to know Everything. Especially if his fear toxin doesn’t work right on them. After all, how would a gas effect something without lungs? How can you inject something that doesn’t have blood, that’s not quite alive, not in the way that we as humans understand? How can you cause fear of something that has stared into the Tunnels’ heart and lived? Or something like that lol.

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AU is a combo of my cryptid batfam and @phoenixcatch7 's Possessed Doll au, go check them out, they're amazing

#rambles #meat marionette au #batman au #I am just pondering how the dynamics with certain rogues are effected #Like Harley and Bruce both went to medschool around the same time and definitely could've shared classes #Like mans is surprisingly connected directly to so many of his rogues #Not to mention the main thing that got me pondering this being the Al Ghuls #Like in my Genesis story I have Damian created from stolen blood since they don't know that the bat is the same as bruce #But idk if this would also happen in this AU or not seeing as the meat puppets don't exactly have blood per se #But maybe it could have something to do with them literally drinking lazarus water too #hngh i have no idea what to do with them :/#batman #batfam #cryptid batman #cryptid batfam #wayne family #gotham rogues #But seriously pondering about their relationships #Not just the rogues but I'll probably elaborate more on that later #like for example would Dick found the Titans when he doesn't have a falling out with Bruce?#hm

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