Migration Patterns snippet

Long before Elle was curious enough to go looking, old candle wax the strongest smell in the musty, airless space. Years of it populated the floor, spilled from broken votives, saints peeling faces newer and brighter the further you walked.

Elle breathed it in. Dust and the dead, grave dirt in her mouth just half a dream away.   People left all kinds of things. Notes and lights, messages written on the walls.   Until the very end of the tunnel, bricked over, where someone had painted a boy from Crime Alley, swinging up out of the gloom as though by magic.   “Hey baby Jay,” Elle whispered, palm pressed to edge of a lovingly rendered yellow cape. They’d gotten the shape wrong, but not the size. Too large, bright as traffic light, so heavy, in passing faded memory. “Anyone tell you lately that you grew up right?”   Jason’s kindness that felt so, so safe- nearly impossible to turn down- nearly goddamn impossible to turn away from, even when she knew it was the right thing to do.   For now.   She’d had years and years. To mourn this Jason, Gotham’s own and gone much too soon. Years to know he was alive, he was out there, that soulmates did not meet until it was time- what the fuck was the point of time if you’d already met?   Car keys in her hand. Jason, who’d disappeared without a word and would again, fear like the taste of blood polluting so much sugared heat in her mouth.   Jason, steadfastly trying to find a single offering she’d take- when all Elle had to really go on were the lines he’d drawn, and some strange hope for a someday that was so clearly not today.   “Warden.”   His voice came out of the dark, body to follow. Gotham’s original ghost, haunting his own past, stepping soundless out of the deep shadows to come up on Elle’s right.   She watched as he crouched. Bruce, head ducked, gently rearranging to offerings laid at his dead son’s feet, room left for the half-crushed marigold he pulled from his utility belt. An undented batarang. Three pocket Shakespeares.

Batman was the only one who left books at the wall for Robin, Elle had learned over the years.   It didn’t matter that the street kids stole them. It was, probably, half the reason he always came with more.   He relit every candle that had gone out, before standing.

“I wonder,” Bruce said, slowly, eyes forward, eerie in the flickering light, “If you might reconsider my offer.”

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? 

i have been unmedicated for the entirety of spring break and thus have had little interest in writing this down, but i have been thinking about this for the entire week (as well as a dpdc clone danny au that resulted in it becoming its entirely separate batman au that includes a teenage vigilante bruce wayne, an ocarina, and me entirely incapable of making a batman au without making bruce dirt poor but we're not talking about that) and so i've finally went 'fuck it' and forcibly grabbed my laptop. I will get this done in one sitting even if it kills me.

BUT. This is about neither clone^2 danny nor about who i am calling Ocarina Batman. This is about my Danyal Al Ghul Au and more SPECIFICALLY it's me thinking about his relationship with Sam and Tucker specifically.

Tucker and Sam? Adore this asshole (affectionate) with every fiber of their being. And it is very much a reciprocated feeling, but Danny's thoughts will not be delved into much other than he would kill for them.

Tucker? The only person currently capable of getting a deep, loud, belly laugh out of Danny. Sam can get him to smile and to laugh, but it's the kind that's a chuckle-under-the-breath. The quiet, looks-down-while-huffing laughter. Snorts once with laughter and then grins stupidly.

But Tucker? Tucker can crack a slew of stupid jokes and Danny will be incapacitated for the next five minutes because he's laughing so hard that he can't breath. He lands one well-timed pun or quip and Danny will be close to tears. His laughter is their favorite sound in the whole world.

Sam is lowkey jealous of this ability, and she's gotten a belly laugh out of Danny a few times. But alas, it is Tucker who wields this power and has gotten it the most times out of the two of them.

-

They're also both physically affectionate with Danny as much as possible. It started roughly around when they were 12-ish, a year since they befriended Danny, and they noticed that he sought after touch but never seemed to initiate (and was in some ways repulsed by it). They started slowly being more touchy with him. Hooking a finger around his to lead him somewhere, tapping his wrist, looping arms. Little touches, grabs, etc, to get him used to it, and once he started doing it back they started increasing it.

It's gotten to a point where he will now just. Lay on them. Like a lizard sunbathing on a rock. Leaning on their backs when they're sitting in class before the bell rings, his chin on their heads. He'll talk about anything with his arms looped around their shoulders.

If they're sitting on a couch at either of their houses, he'll lay his legs on theirs. Him and Tucker will press their feet against the other's and try and push against them (newsflash: Danny always wins, Tucker claims its the ghost strength but Danny's been winning since before his accident)

-

Naturally, both Sam and Tucker know where Danny keeps his weapons on his person, and are allowed to grab them off of him if they need it. His only requirement is that they don't lose his weapons if they take it and forget to return it immediately.

They both understand how big of a thing this is from Danny, and so they do their best to treat his weapons with a lot of respect and care because they know its his way of saying he trusts them.

-

Sam and Tucker are so fond of Danny it's insane. Like fr. That's their goddamn best friend, and they are so protective of him. Emotionally, physically, you name it. They will tear the head off a grown man if they need to, Danny's had scars since he arrived in Amity Park and Sam and Tucker both are going to find the person who put them there and make them pay for it.

One time, Tucker overheard a bunch of upperclass girls speaking nastily about Danny and about the rumors surrounding him, calling him names like 'freak', 'monster', etc. Danny was with him and heard it, and seemingly appeared unbothered by it, even telling Tucker that he was used to such rumors.

Tucker was so furious that hacked into the school system later that night and tanked those girls grades. They were kicked out of their clubs and had to go to mandatory tutoring for the rest of the year. He made sure to leave some way of letting them know it was him who did it.

And Sam doesn't like using her money for things, doesn't like abusing that wealth. So instead, whenever her parents talk bad about Danny, she causes a media incident that has her parents scrambling to deal with. She does something wild, outrageous by her parents' standards.

She heard some boys on the basketball team making fun of Danny once, similar to those girls had. She kicks up a fuss about something eco-unfriendly at school and forcibly holds a protest on the same day of the big home basketball game, forcing them to cancel the event and reschedule to a visiting school.

She anonymously donates money so that there's new uniforms for the team but oops! Looks like she "forgot" to donate enough money for them to get uniforms for all the team members, and strangely enough those boys in particular didn't get them! Looks like they'll have to wait until more money gets donated for the basketball team to get their new, nice uniforms. The old ones look so ratty in comparison, right?

And since the football team gets most of the sport money, that might just take awhile. And if (and when) they kick up a fuss? oops! Off the basketball team you go, :) such unsportsman-like behavior is unfit for the team.

(The only good thing about how corrupt the school system is is that she can use it to her advantage too.)

The both of them know that Danny suspects them for the sudden misfortune falling on these people, but he doesn't call them out on it. He's kinder than he used to be, but not kind enough to vouch for people who speak badly of him. Sometimes, he might just congratulate them on not getting caught.

Because Danny is their wonderful, hurt friend with a "slightly" Blue and Orange Moral code, and enough scars that people have been calling him a criminal (and worse) since he arrived in Amity Park when he was ten. And they'll be damned if he gets hurt anymore.

Adventures in raising a ten year old

Clark/Oliver/Barry: *asking Bruce for parenting tips*

Bruce walking along the strangely quiet Manor: "Take it from me, what matters is that you're trying. It'll work out."

At the uncertain grumbling from the other person, Bruce adds: "And besides they're smart kids--"

A sudden flash of yellow suddenly lights up the Manor and Bruce squints out the window, seeing his kids outside, surrounded by discarded bottles of flammable stuff, cheering as they light swords on fire with oven mitts on.

Clark/Barry/Oliver: "I know, I know, it's just--"

Bruce, while running out of the Manor: "I have to call you back--"

Of course the "why doesn't Batman use his money to fix the system instead of punching the mentally ill" twitter argument is dumb and missing the point (Bruce is not a real person, he did invest a lot of money into helping people in need when he was still rich, it's an action comic, which means violence is going to happen and Gotham is not meant to be fixed, if it was fixed there would be no story), but these past few runs have deconstructed Bruce so much that the people of Gotham or public figures like mayor Nakano thinking Batman is a menace do actually have a point.

I mean, who has Bruce been fighting this entire run? Failsafe and Zur, two evil Batmen of Bruce's own creation. And even in the runs before Zdarsky it was kind of a running theme that Bruce wasn't fighting to save the city from an strange threat, he was fighting someone who had a bone to pick with him for one reason or another. I get that this is supposed to make the story feel more personal, but if you're also constantly asking the question "is Batman doing more harm than good?" then the answer might eventually be "more harm" if you had to be honest. A lot of the many recent takeovers of Gotham had nothing to do with Gotham, they were all about Bruce.

Superhero comics kind of need to have what their protagonists are doing to be helpful though. Of course Batman is not ever going to stop crime in Gotham. But if things don't improve at all or get even worse? Then what did Bruce and his family members sacrifice so much for? And if you seriously think their struggles should have been for nothing because the idea of heroes saving the day is stupid then why are you even writing superhero comics?

So a genuine question. I'm somewhat new to DC comics (was on the edge looking into the fandom for most of my life but only recently started reading the comics) and I thought the "Tim stalked Batman and Robin with a camera" was a canon thing? I can't remember the first time I saw it, but I feel like it was mid 2010s, so earlier then what I thought was the start of the Tim Angst Era of fanfic. Like I know I've seen fanart of it from people who said they don't really read fanfiction, so I assumed it was a canon thing. Do you have any idea what might have started it? In my experience fanon stuff starts with a grain of truth somewhere, even if by the end it's lost that grain.

Yes I do it actually did start in canon basically Tim does take pictures of Batman but its after jason dies since it's bc batman is killing himself and he needs evidence to prove to Dick that Bruce is killing himself so that dick will want to become robin again (it doesn't work but he tried) and he does stalk dick and the titans a bit since after the titans come back from space dick decides to leave them for a wee while so tim has to stalk them to figure out where dick is

Dick is insanely multi-lingual in the preboot and even post-Nu52 he speaks at least nine languages and he’s a polyglot in YJ this is such a funny little thing that’s carried across continuities? 

Like, look at this preboot list of languages.

Richard. Sir.

My thought process. Every time

im really sorry if this question ends up being repetitive: but, if not for bruce’s over reliance on dick to regulate his thoughts and emotions, why would dick grow up into feeling like he needs to repress his emotions so much and his eagerness to act as people’s support? i know youve spoken about wolfman and his altering of their relationship but if ntt is generally an accurate portrayal of an adult dick, to me this nevertheless sounds like the consequences a parent-child relationship where the responsibilities are titled too much towards the child

i suppose this could also segue into asking for recs that would help me better understand your interpretation of their relationship 👀

not repetitive at all! to me the irony of wolfman's depiction of dick lies in that it is simultaneously something you can logically ascertain from prior canon but not for the reasons actually presented by wolfman. if that makes sense. he does extra work that isn't actually necessary to help explain why dick would act the way that he does because there's plenty of reasons for it without rewriting his history with bruce to have always been suppressed and edgy and dark. to me it makes far more sense to capitalize on the inevitable disconnect between bruce and dick as an adult and a child. batman: full circle is a good example of that dichotomy (and although it was published in the early 90s it built on mike w. barr's prior understanding of the relationship between dick and bruce that he wrote into the early 80s). bruce's primary concern for the people he works with is never standards or finesse but safety. he worries constantly about others coming to harm under his watch and with a child in particular those worries were exacerbated. he ran a tight ship not because he believed dick had anything to prove but because the only way dick could keep being robin was if he went about it safely. that was obv easy for an adult to understand. but not so much for a child

to bruce these worries were practical and par for the course (as well as an expression of his love and protectiveness) but for dick their consequences formed the crux of his entire world. as a child he idolized everything about bruce. his heroism. his work ethic. his skill. his resolve. his preparedness. if dick couldn't live up to the standard he set for himself in idolizing bruce then what could he ever hope to amount to? that was the thought constantly going through his head. and it's why the bulk of his childhood and primary tenure as bruce's partner was so precariously protected by the fact that nothing bad ever really happened during it (and admittedly this framing is convenient because even chronologically speaking nothing very significant happened in their history with each other until dick left for university in 1969) (i know dixon opted to write that whole shtick with dent in his version of events but personally i never found it necessary to do so). there is enough there in the idea of dick working hard for the course of a decade to embody who he believed bruce to be that lends itself to it eventually being difficult for him to healthily express himself once the rift between them actually began to emerge

because what about bruce was there to actually see that was broken and dark before dick became an adult? i know a lot of dick fans hate batman #408 because they don't like that it enforced "retirement" upon dick (which i personally believe is a conclusion they come to because of the way batman #416 re-framed the same scene) but to me that's an inaccurate reading of the text. batman #408 was about bruce (admittedly far too belatedly) recognizing that he could not in good conscience continue to ask dick to go out and be a vigilante on what he considered to be his own "orders". he viewed dick's close call with death at the hands of the joker as something directly of his own making. although their tenure with each other had been wonderful if dick wanted to continue to be a vigilante it had to be on his own terms and of his own volition. obv that was logical to bruce and it was something dick managed to accept in the moment. but it's still hard to go from always having a purpose alongside someone you idolized to finally being entrusted entirely to forge your own

in general i like the idea of dick the adult becoming privy to all of the personal problems and conflicts that come with being a vigilante. he was conveniently shielded from a lot of those problems as a child because all he had to do was be bruce's partner and hope to live up to the title. bruce had no reason to trauma dump on him or talk about his worries and concerns at length with him because it was never supposed to be dick's job to field those worries and concerns in the first place. he was a child. the only thing bruce wanted to do was to help channel his emotions through an outlet and provide him with a home to grow up in. but when you become an adult often that dynamic shifts. you're still not responsible for fielding those worries and concerns but you can perhaps be trusted with them. that's why i like the framing in batman #408 of dick now being a man. it's a subtle way to frame the double-edged sword of adulthood. the world is in your hands now but so will be the horrors that come with it. coming to terms with the real world that bruce lives in should be hard for dick. coming to terms with who bruce is when he's not perfect should be hard. coming to terms with how quietly bruce kept his grief because he did not see fit to overwhelm a child with it should be hard. that dichotomy of dick both wanting to be bruce's brother and his son should form the crux of their conflict with each other because you can't hope to be someone's equal and someone's protected at the same time in that kind of relationship. for dick to transition into the position of equal he has to expose himself to the fact that bruce is not in fact an idol but someone irrevocably human. and that should interfere significantly with his head and his own standards for himself

"she's trying to stop more innocent people from being killed by offering a different path. She's taking a harm reduction path as much as she can. Yeah, they're going to make mistakes, but if she can still reduce those mistakes, isn't it worth trying? Or is one mistake enough that she should never try any other path ever again, even though it means they'll immediately go back to killing lots of innocent people?"

chiming in to say i think the problem with this view is that, as Jason points out, she has ZERO actual control over the people she's ostensibly "employing". she can have all the good intentions to reduce harm she wants, but acting like good vibes and promises are enough to keep things from ever getting out of hand is practically on "positive thinking cures bipolar disorder" levels of oversight (note: i'd actually finished this post and was about to hit ask when i realized how on the nose that comparison is considering scarecrow is fucking with this plan. gonna leave it.) there have to be some fire safety measures here, and her repeatedly insisting they aren't necessary and she's totally got everything handled is ultimately going to hurt the people she was trying to save when the building burns.

which, i agree with you that she's absolutely smarter than this, and it drives me up the wall that they keep having her double down on it.

Yeah, I feel like there's a couple of things at war within this storyline execution: 1 - Comic book logic is absolutely a thing and trying to map hyperrealistic complex real world consequences onto a story that is being written by imperfect authors who are not experts in the fields this would be touching on is always going to mean that there are going to be major flaws in the logic of the story. Superhero comics as a whole can have just as many flaws pointed out about their logic, like I don't believe for a single second that someone like Bruce Wayne would be able to be Batman without it being known publicly, between the coincidences piled up or how freely they all use real names in the field. If we can accept that people just don't recognize Clark Kent with his glasses on or don't recognize Bruce Wayne's jawline (while I absolutely can goddamned recognize George Clooney or Val Kilmer's jawlines even when they're in full cowl), I feel okay giving some leeway to Selina being written into a dumbass plan for reducing crime in Gotham. 2 - And the story, while pointing out the flaws in her logic (a person died in the kick off issue even!), it also points out that her way had reduced innocent people getting hurt, so it's reasonable for Selina to think this is a viable plan. No, she doesn't have actual control over these people (well, she has some, in that they respect her and are loyal to her, to at least some degree), but nobody has control over others when offering a different path of any kind. Like, if she was offering college courses or trade school classes for people, she wouldn't have any control over them there, either. Presumably, she's not ignoring that getting innocent people hurt will send them to jail, that they're warned about this ahead of time and know the consequences, she's just trying to offer something, anything that's better than what they had before, even as deeply imperfect as it is. Like, I'm in agreement that I think this is a bad plan, but I'm not sure how much of that is me coming from a real world perspective where this could NEVER happen, but costumed vigilantes at a baseline could NEVER happen in the real world, either, but we've mostly accepted that that's part of the genre, you know? Versus how much am I just trying to meet the narrative where it's at? How much of this is that they're writing Selina badly and how much is it that it's just the same logic of vigilantes being allowed to exist (which are also often criticized within the narrative, just as Selina's plan is being criticized from within the narrative) that applies to Selina's plans as well? There's just as much accountability from Batman as there is from Catwoman--he might have more money, but ultimately nobody actually is able to hold Batman responsible for anything and the only control he has are the training he's given them and the loyalty and love they have for him as a person. Should we say Batman's ideas are bad, because the rogues kill people based around their obsession with him and those he trains? He's not training the rogues directly, but his actions are leading to those deaths of innocent people that he's trying to help, just as Selina training these people, trying to give them non-lethal options, still lead to deaths, even if she doesn't have direct control over them. I don't even really like Selina's plans or that she's being written to propose this idea because I don't think she'd believe in it, but I feel like there's a lot of Comic Book Logic going on that I'm trying to be generous about, you know?

Jason: WHY CAN'T YOU JUST KILL HIM?! I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY! HE'S EVIL, HE'S BARELY HUMAN!

Bruce: I cant

Jason: OH YEAH, YOUR STUPID CODE, YOU CAN'T EVEN BREAK-

Bruce: it will hurt you more if I kill him

Jason: YEAH HOW'S THAT!? HE'D FINELY BE DEAD!

Bruce: because he won't stay that way. I'VE TRIED, HE JUST COMES BACK!

Jason: -what

You know what - I'll always be of the opinion that while the Ultimate Cut is better and should have been released as that - you would still get the same general plot from the Theatrical Cut as you did, the ultimate cut just gave me more Clark so its ultimately better by that regard

antigone. jean anouilh.

quotations from antigone: a tragedy by jean anouilh. translated by lewis galantière.

comic panels in order are from: battle for the cowl 3 (x3), batman annual 25, batman and robin 5, batman and robin 6, battle for the cowl 3, batman 416, battle for the cowl 3, battle for the cowl 2, batman annual 25, batman and robin 6, under the red hood, battle for the cowl 3 (x2), batman 427, lost days 5.

detective comics #484

[ID: college aged Dick Grayson, in his Robin costume, talking to Mr. Haly (the circus owner) after preventing a tragedy from occuring. Dick worriedly asks, “But what will you do now, Mr. Haly? With the damage caused by the fire you might have to sell out...” Mr. Haly reassures, “No, my boy, because for years I've been recoevin these checks — anonymously! Thanks to them, the Haly Circus will remain in my control!” He shows Dick the check, who instantly recognizes it! He thinks, ‘Hmmmm, that check comes from a bank where a certain Bruce (Batman) Wayne is a heavy depositor... What do you know!’ He tells Haly, “Well, you're still on top, Mr. Haly — and I have places to go!” END ID]