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phoenixcatch7 · 8 months

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Kintsukuroi

'What if I put a clock pendulum in my torso' was the sort of question Bruce had come to expect when visiting Oracle.

"Pendulums are dependant on a stable base," he replied, because the last time he'd assumed they were being unserious Tim had tried to fit a chemistry test lab in his mouth and accidentally leaked the fumes through his mask.

"It'd be so aesthetic though," said Barbara, not looking up from the dozen screens she was surrounded by. "Listen. It would look so cool - Spoiler, robbery on fifth and main - Especially if I put a clock face over my heart."

"I thought you were trying to fit a super computer in it?"

"I was, but progress is slow. It's hard to fit it and enough padding to protect it plus leave enough room for ventilation. If I add the pendulum I might at least get inspiration." She gave a heavy sigh and pushed away from the desk, gliding in her chair to where her doll body was resting on a table, the glue separating the two halves of the smashed torso still glistening. Bruce followed, peering over her at the many scanners and wires hooked into it, flashing and beeping.

"Any luck?" he asked, and they both knew he wasn't talking about the computer anymore.

"Nothing."

He squeezed her shoulder, and she leant into it. They stayed there for a long moment.

"I just don't understand!" Barbara finally burst out, hands clenching on her chair arms. "I glued nearly every single piece back together! I made sure every splinter I could find went exactly where it should! I know the contract is still there. She's worked with more missing pieces before. But she's just not responding!"

"It's not you," Bruce soothed. "You've more than enough determination and strength to puppet, and we know the human body's state doesn't affect performance."

"That's the thing!" Barbara threw her hands up angrily, nearly smacking Bruce in the face. There was a chatter over comms, and both reached for their own. "One second," she said tightly, and wheeled back into the glow of the monitors. "Copy. BW, you're nearest? Thanks. Try and avoid the sniper this time. Wing, backup is in five."

She muted again and spun around, pinning Bruce with a heavy stare. "Is there anything, anything you can think of? We've - nothing I've tried has worked."

"Well...." He trailed off, one hand coming up to rub at the chin of his mask - a quiet night meant the opportunity to forgo the practical but muffling gas mask for his favoured plain black.

It was far from the first time a doll had been horrifically damaged. The incident with Bane came to mind - Batman had been in a very similar condition, body shorn clean in two and tossed to opposite corners. It was an awful memory, but the expression on Bane and the audience's faces as his bloodless body fell apart like a rotting tree trunk and then kept moving was a silver lining he'd always treasure.

But he'd been repaired and back on his feet in weeks, if bearing the incandescent fury of the doll for several more. It had been months for Barbara, and still nothing was happening.

"There's something we're missing, and I doubt it's on your side."

"I know THAT-"

"Listen," he demanded, and her jaw clicked shut mutinously. "There's something we're not seeing. Batgirl is in no shape to demand it herself, it seems. So its inaction is something we can't fully rely on."

"You've got the most experience with the dolls of all of us. Can you.. I don't know, sense anything?"

"Nothing more than the usual, with the Patriarch Doll, but we might get more if we return to the doll house -"

"No." Barbara interrupted again, but Bruce did not take offence. "She's not going anywhere. She doesn't want to head back to the cave."

Oh?

"She doesn't want to, or she doesn't care to?"

"I say she doesn't."

Interesting. This was likely a case of the doll exerting its will. The bats were well versed in avoiding the few lines their wooden bodies drew in the sand, treating them with the wary respect one would give a favorite blade or a highly trained attack dog. They could work together, share the highs and lows of life with them, but never get complacent. The dolls were forever a foreign, inhuman presence, and as with all wild creatures they would never be so arrogant as to assume full understanding. For Barbara to so strongly decide for the doll meant she was most likely not the only one deciding.

Which meant the solution would not be found in the cave.

"Perhaps there are upgrades she wishes to have?"

Oracle paused.

"Maybe," she conceded. "But there's practically a limitless amount of things I could do, and I wouldn't know where to start. And I could more easily do them when she's up and walking."

Not that then. If the doll wanted something to change but not receive upgrades or heal, than what?

... Not heal.

Batman hurried to the table. Oracle watched him with hawk eyes, but another call on the comms turned her away with a final warning glance.

Recovering every single splinter from a damaged wooden object and perfectly reattaching it was nigh impossible on a good day, never mind in the dead of night with a moving target. The dolls always returned to the cave to regenerate scratches and nicks they couldn't buff out, or accepted plaster to transmute with whatever supernatural power guided them.

The batgirl on the table, divested of all covering and armour, was still as chipped and scuffed as the day nightwing recovered last splinter.

The pieces fell into place.

"She doesn't want to be perfectly rebuilt," he realised. "She doesn't want the damage to disappear as it normally does... She wants it to remain visible. A different type of repair, then."

Oracle spun in her wheelchair to face him.

"Why?" she asked, something sharp in her eyes. Bruce chose his next words carefully.

"Perhaps she thinks such damage doesn't need to be hidden away," he said, slowly, and didn't comment when she turned away. Though she put on a strong face, and the doctors had recently released her full time, it would be a long time until the young hero was able to truly heal her mind.

"She doesn't need to do that for me. She's just causing me trouble."

"I don't think she is," he tried. "Dolls tend to reflect their puppeteer even after they accept us. You can't deny your trajectory has been changed."

They both sent a significant look to the enormous super computer taking up the wall.

"You've said you almost feel better able to protect Gotham now, with your reach and skills. Do you really feel that way?"

"I - I don't -" her mouth worked silently, and Bruce waited. "I mean I guess... But a part of me always assumed it'd be temporary, you know? Once I fixed batgirl.. It'd all return to normal." Her voice wobbled, and Bruce didn't hesitate to crouch before her, wrapping her in a long armed hug. She buried herself in his chest, regardless of the chilled metal.

"It's okay if you don't," he whispered into her hair, and held her as she shook. "I'm just throwing ideas around."

"I do though," she rasped. "I think I do feel that way. There's so much that can't be solved by violence, and it feels good to be out there but... I think I can help even more people, this way."

"That's good," he praised, "that's good. You can do whatever you set your mind to."

"You stole that from a parenting book verbatim."

"It's applicable to the current situation."

"Fine," she sighed, and pushed him away to roughly scrub at her eyes. "I'll give the doll another chance. Find some glitter glue or something, I don't know."

"Any materials you need will be provided," he promised. "I wouldn't recommend glitter glue or our usual tar."

He moved to pat her on the hair as the emotions of the moment faded, making sure to keep his unsheathed claws out of her hair.

"Once you fix her, though, I would recommend you puppet the doll during night hours still," he told her. "It wouldn't be good to put your body through twenty hour days."

"I've got a good system set up for now, but thank, B-man."

The computer dinged with another alert, and oracle spun to squint at it with a muffled curse, typing furiously. Batman escaped to the other side of the room, where the folders he'd originally come looking for lay. She waved, distracted, as he left, and although the doll could not smile, he could feel it on his face all the same.

@puppetmaster13u I summon thee dear mutual ^^

#I don't know which of us came up with the kintsukuroi idea but it worked brilliantly #Unexpected discussion of clinging to the idea of normality as something that can be returned to despite thinking you're okay with your #Life altering chronic condition diagnosis 🫠#Off screen nightwing is just not having a good time #I'm still testing out my characterisation of b but I'm pretty happy with him. Good dad b but also pre/no Ethiopia so he's healthier as it i #Oh btw the dolls don't have gender being inanimate the bats are anthropomorphising them #In the same way sailors call their boats she or my mum decided the roomba is a he #Some world building! I stuffed a lot in lol #I like the idea of the bats having different masks. Like the gas mask is for arkham breakouts or gas villains or ivy so it's the famous one #But they also use plain cloth masks or ceramic ones or decorative ones when the occasion calls. They've got scuba ones too #long post #batman #world building #worldbuilding #bruce wayne #possessed doll au #haunted doll #cryptid batman #cryptid batfam #batman au #dc oracle #barbara gordon #batgirl #I'm trying to keep the dolls as mindless but watchful as possible #Like they don't have opinions or ideas or anything. You could do literally whatever you wanted as long as you follow The Rules #I don't think the bats really know about the contracts. I think b has inferred something. But it's more trial and error #One idea I had is that the dolls are powered by the life force of past users mutated into... Whatever tf from all the curses.#So by entering the contract you lose a significant chunk of your ability to enter the afterlife.#Yes this would only be noticed by the jl going to the future and trying to find the souls of everyone or smth for whatever reason #And the bats don't have much of anything. Leading to the further impression that they aren't remotely human

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kagekitsuneoflight · 2 years

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Yes yes early days Robin!Jason having a complicated relationship with food and hoarding non-perishables and eating everything without a fuss no after how much he hates it and even having little stashes of food in places where only he and Batman will ever be “just in case B.”

Then him growing more secure and hoarding less and letting Alfred know that actually he hates how steamed broccoli feels in his mouth and the stashes dwindling because he’s freely sharing what he’s stored away in there because he feels *safe*.

Then he dies, and Bruce can’t stand to see those little stashes that being the hurt in a whole other way that he just cannot stand and he gets rid of it all until the only remnant of Jason Todd is of the soldier down in his memorial.

Then Jason comes back. But it’s all wrong and it’s Batman who faces his sidekick who’s gone bad and not a father being confronted with his son who is lost. And it’s brutal. Things were said and actions taken that could never be undone.

Their relationship is rocky on the best of days.

And it’s Batman who notices little packages being stowed. They’re not left in places where the average person could even dream of getting to. It’s suspicious. Why wouldn’t it be? It’s the Red Hood after all. So he goes to investigate, expecting something like a bomb.

All he finds is a large jar of peanut butter, and a large handful of saltine crackers. Every analysis he puts it through come back signaling the same thing: plain and regular peanut butter and saltine crackers. But there must be something more. There has to be a game.

But when Alfred comes down with some food to passive aggressively talk Batman into eating, he stares at the jar and packets for a long time. Any wit on the top of his tongue withering away.

“I was not aware,” he says, “that Master Jason has resumed his habit of hiding food away.”

And something in Bruce dies.

#jason todd #food as a metaphor for trust or a lackthereof lets gooo #tfw you see refer to your son more as his alter ego you have deemed villainous more than the person he actually is #so you treat his actions as inheritly suspicious and evil #shut up kage

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trollhunters-eldritch-princess · 9 months

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no series has ever managed to fill me with a sense of pity and tragedy more than the series finale of Trollhunters.

#trollhunters #tales of arcadia #jim lake jr #jim lake junior #claire nunez #trollhunters meta #toby domzalski #merlin #i'm sorry but it's the way that jim's life is permanently altered #and how the villains extracted such a great cost for their defeat #and in how defeating the monster forces you to give up your own humanity #so that all that is left is something that is not quite human #it's came back wrong but emotionally and physically #i felt nothing but pity for jim #a lot of these types of series make me want to be them at some point #ever since i finished trollhunters i was grateful to remain as a audience member #being a trollhunter is a living nightmare

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selfship-wormie · 2 months

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selfshippers with DID are loved an cherished here! sincerely, Wormie, who is a headmate themselves -`♡´-

#f/o #f/o stuff #fictional other #self ship #f/o x s/i #romantic f/o #self shipping #f/o community #villain f/o #comfort characters #did system #did osdd #actually did #did alter #traumagenic system

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siremasterlawrence · 2 months

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The Flash: Enter The SPEEDFORCE

“Barry…Barry Allen”

“Who? Who are you ?”

“Am I hearing this?”

“No Barry!”

“What are you?”

“Speedforce”

“No you are not “

“I am everything “

“Everywhere”

“Time itself “

“I shift Time Zone”

“I am what created you “

“You lie”

“Haha! You think so?”

“I am aware of”

“You know zilch! I am about to show you “

“No wait!”

“Why should I stop?”

“Why so slow?”

“My energy “

“Yeah! I am draining it”

“Asshole”

“Mwahahahahaha “

“You still can’t face it can you ?”

“A mirror?”

“Look in it”

“NO!”

“You can’t resist”

“You are compelled to obey “

“Yes”

“Come on Barry”

“Why fight?”

“Because…”

“Resistance is futile”

“Yes it is”

“You see your future? Bowng to me”

Barry Allen is completely shaken to his core on the outside of this world his body lay in a frozen state.His mind lay in waste as he is stuck in the red raging force of speed cracking sound fiery thunder.Barry backs up unknowingly he is considers his own defeat as his real body lifts from the floor. Something is off as a portals opens up to the mindless husk and Barry’s body walksin to the room. Barry is now in a state of despair speeding up with power to meet his falling body. Unfortunately! The bottom came cratering down to the earth forming a massive hole. Barry gets to his body kneels down next to it the tears raining down his eyes as he sees the brutal impact. A man stood behind him placing his hand tight on Barry’s shoulders. Nothing else could break his attention span as Barry’s eyes trace up to look at his nemesis.