RR: that is in fact a threat.
*At the Watchtower for some huge meeting*
Superman: hey Red Robin! Happy belated birthday! It was last week right? How old are you now?
Red Robin: 17.
Nightwing: 20!
Everyone: *stares*
Nightwing: RR, we talked about this. You can’t just decide to stop aging. That’s not how it works. You were born 20 years ago so you are 20 years old.
Red Robin: no. I’m 17 and I really need you to stop saying I’m not.
Impulse: Yeah! We’re 17 Nightwing! We’re never gonna be older than that!
*yj core four gather round Red Robin menacingly*
Superman: what?????
Nightwing: *sighs*
Batman: *dissatisfied grunt*
Red Robin: we went through a lot of bs to become eternally 17 and I won’t let you ruin our hard work!
Wonder Woman (eternally young and suffering for it): why? Why would you do this?
Superboy: if RR is doing it we’re gonna be right there with him!
Wonder girl: *nods*
Red Robin: believe us, you don’t want to see what happens if I lose my youthful optimism.
Okay so hear me out— i see lots of “you can’t control Danny he’s a wild child” premises and like, I agree, I love that, but JUST hear me out. Danny who is just entranced by being treated like a NORMAL KID.
I think for best results this should be done with de-aged Danny so he’s a bit younger, but it can def work with regular Danny too.
Danny winds up running around Gotham for one reason or another doing INSANE SHIT to try and help or just survive and his family is out of the way. The explosion, Bad Fentons, etc— and one of the bats picks up Danny. This can be a dad!Jason, or dad!Dick, or classic Bruce Adoption. But they see this little shit running around and are like “no fucking way, not on my watch you little maniac”
Now, a lot of people use the “Jazz practically raised Danny” card, and I love that card and fully support it, but she was also a kid. With no other parents to consult. Who was raised by the Fentons originally and def has no clue what normal parents are like. So she probably didn’t exactly measure up to how a kid is MEANT to be raised. So Danny still had an incredibly strange childhood that just was Not Normal, but I feel like we see Danny with a deep desire to be normal. He doesn’t even really like being a superhero that much, he just wanted to be a kid.
So he gets bat adopted, and Danny is just functioning how he did growing up with the Fentons, which is No Restrictions Do What You Want. And then his bat dad (using Jason for this) is like “No. It’s Bed Time.” And Danny. Danny is ALL for that. He’s bewildered. Mystified. He’s not grumpy about being told what to do at ALL, because he’s just so shocked.
“You’re serious? You’re fucking dead-ass serious? It’s bed time? Oh my god this is so cool. I’ve never had a bed time before! This is great!” Because this is the first time he’s EVER been treated like a normal child by a parental figure. He just got sent to bed. Wow.
Having a parent who is in charge of keeping him healthy and actually enforces Danny taking care of himself is kind of cool.
“Eat your vegetables, they’re good for you.” And they won’t try to eat him back? Fuck yeah, he’ll eat his vegetables!
“No you aren’t allowed to go out at 2 in the morning, go back to bed, you have a doctors appointment for your yearly checkup tomorrow.” oh ancients, Danny has always heard other kids complain about not being allowed out at night, but to have himself told he can’t? This is so weird. And he’s never been to a yearly check up before!
“Brush your teeth before bed” “I can’t get cavities, I’m dead!” “Ya know, for some reason I don’t believe you. When was the last time you went to the dentist? Are you sure you can’t get them?” Danny has 7 cavities.
The first time Danny gets to actually use the “my dad said No” excuse, he is ECSTATIC. Jack and Maddie have LITERALLY never told him he can’t go out somewhere. Ever. He’s in a whole new world where he doesn’t have to fight ghosts, or be a hero, or anything and he loves it. He has a normal kids room without deadly weapons in it and normal kid hobbies and a fridge full of normal food and a parent who enforces a bed time, and it’s weird as hell and it’s great. Normal is pretty damn good, he has no clue what Sam and Tucker were always complaining about. Shits sweet.
To be honest. DCxDP where the reason Danny meets the bats is Ace the Bat-hound
Like, just think about it for a second. Danny is in Gotham for college, or maybe he just moved out to find a city where having mad scientist parents isn’t actually that unusual.
He can see ghosts.
The ghosts know this.
Now he’s getting harassed left and right by spirits trying to get closure. Fine, whatever, most of them are a one-and-done type deal, and the amount of ghosts trying to get his help steadily decreases.
Except for this one very stubborn dog.
It just keeps showing up and leading him to crime scenes! He doesn’t know how many “anonymous tips” he can call in to the cops before they trace his phone! And this dog, this incredibly good boy, will not stop trying to help the city. He’s never met anyone with such a strong sense of justice, let alone a dog. Can dogs even have a moral compass?
And so Danny just accepts the fact that Ace isn’t going anywhere and becomes his reluctant sidekick/dedicated medium. He leans into the whole thing, dressing up in a mix of traditional magic-user attire and accessories that pay homage to the ghost dog.
He becomes somewhat well known. The psychopomp detective following around the shadowy figure of a German Shepard? That’s unusual! That’s weird! I mean, it’s not the weirdest thing in Gotham, sure, but he’s a new vigilante and he’s got a ghost dog that people can only see when it’s around him. Someone’s gonna notice.
Damian, as Robin, is the first to reach out to him.
Ace doesn’t know Damian but he does know a Robin, and while this isn’t his Robin, he’s still friendlier than usual. Danny’s panicking because oh god the bats are here and also is this kid gonna steal my ghost dog, Damian is absolutely delighted by Ace, and Ace is just happy to see a Robin again.
Damian decides that the psychopomp isn’t a danger to anyone, and there’s no reason to put this encounter into his reports, really, and perhaps Danny can help with some of his cases in the future.
Danny is sweating bullets because Damian basically tells him that he’ll keep him secret as long as he gets to play with Ace. Ace is happy that he’s finally getting some bat affiliated crime-fighting assistance.
And so, Danny is now both Ace AND Damian’s reluctant assistant. At least whenever he’s in trouble, he can always call a middle schooler to help him.
(Is Robin even in school? He’s out patrolling damn near every night, and he stays out late as hell. Does he have a bedtime? He should.)
Eventually it gets to the point where Damian is going over to Danny’s house. When he first sees it, he has a damn bitch you live like this moment, to which Danny responds that not everyone has the money to afford a nice place. Damian counters that he could at least take the time to clean up, and Danny replies that he’s working, going to school, and being a vigilante assistant to a ghost dog, something’s got to give.
Danny nearly has a heart attack when he checks his bank account the next day and sees that someone transferred him 10,000 dollars.
And so they get into a routine. Danny and Damian fight crime with Ace at night, and occasionally Damian stops by during the day to play with Ace and have Danny help with his homework.
(Damian is smart enough to do it on his own, but some of the instructions are written incredibly confusingly, and he would never admit to needing help to his family. Danny is just glad that the kid is in school and cares about his education, blissfully unaware that he’s basically emotionally adopted him.)
Damian is used to being in Danny’s company.
Eventually, when going over a case with the family, Damian absentmindedly remarks that he’ll have to ask Danny about some of the clues that they might be missing. Nightwing asks who he means and Damian makes a face like he just swallowed a lemon.
Cue shitstorm.
Who is “Danny?” Why is Damian willing to ask for help from anyone, much less someone outside of the family? Does he know who Damian is? Has Damian been compromised? What the hell is going on?
Damian now has to explain that Danny is the psychopomp with the ghost dog who he might have met hunted down while on patrol and conveniently not mentioned, but he’s not a bad person, really, and he lets him play with Ace, and he’s been quite helpful on certain cases due to his ability to talk to ghosts.
Bruce insists that the family meet Danny. Damian, hoping that he won’t just skip town the second he hears the news, relents.
Danny is surprisingly eager to meet the bats, considering his earlier fears.
Damian, blissfully unaware of what’s coming, sets a time and place to meet.
Once everyone is there, he gives Bruce the earful of a lifetime.
Robin is in middle school! Danny knows that there’s no way to stop the boy from going on patrol, but you could at least shift his schedule so he gets enough sleep on school nights! Does the Bat even know where he is half the time?! (No) And why isn’t he comfortable asking his family for help with both cases and homework? Did they ever even notice how much time he was spending at Danny’s house? If Danny was a bad person, he could have seriously hurt the poor boy! Shame on you!
Nightwing is mortified that Damian didn’t trust him enough to tell him about any of this. Red Hood is laughing his ass off, because yeah Danny is making good points but he’s also chewing out the literal Batman. Tim is recording the whole thing. Steph is delighted by the absolute gall of this Danger Twink™️, and already planning to add him to several groupchats. Damian is more embarrassed than he’s ever been in his entire life.
You, he points to Nightwing, did your academic life feel supported when you were a Robin? Nightwing is too stunned to speak. Red Hood, eternal shit-stirrer, says that oh, we all prioritized patrol over our education, that’s just how it is. Red Robin actually dropped out of high school to avoid distractions, did you know that?
Danny honest-to-god shrieks at this.
He finishes his angry rant and leaves, everyone too stunned to stop him.
And as it turns out, Tim wasn’t the only person recording the whole thing.
The entire internet is blowing up with Psychopomp The Danger Twink™️’s rant. People are taking sides. Things are getting messy. Red Hood literally admitting on-camera to previously being a Robin is somehow not the main focus here.
Eventually someone connects some dots from the video, as well as stories circling the internet about the psychopomp. A ghost dog named Ace, who is the literal only reason that the psychopomp is fighting crime at all, which seems incredibly fond of Nightwing and Robin.
A crime-fighting dog who wants constant attention from both the current and original Robin.
Oh my god, Ace the Bat-hound died and became a crime-fighting ghost.
And, somehow, that’s still not the strangest thing going on in Gotham.
Cal may have started off shy, but Obi-wan was pretty sure that was purely based on walking in to find his thesis advisor face down on his desk.
short panel strip for @shortcuts-make-long-delays's cwrb fic 'sourdough: flour, water, and starting over' which, as well as being a hilariously clever and super adorable codywan piece, has this mentorship scene between Cal & Obi-Wan that made me positively melt.
Awesome
sick and tired of yhese guys honestly they need to perish ,,, smth smth stage three of postmortem changes is rigor mortis , stage tthree of grief is bargaining , the anatomy of a hug, the sentiment of wanting to live inside each other’s rib cage , etc etc
Reverstober
male witch!Hux and his little bit dead boyfriend
Damian, who has just lost the last member of his family, goes off the deep end and, in a fit of violent rage, goes tumbling through a portal and back in time.
Jason doesn’t know how the scary guy with the gunshot wound became his problem but he’s not heartless enough to leave him to bleed out beside some dumpster in Crime Alley.
Just-just ues.
Branzy is not some innocent waif by any means, but I feel like everyone misunderstands the ways in which he matches Clown’s freak. Particularly, they want to subvert what they view as the architypical dynamic between Branzy and Clown without any real regard to how Branzy's personality actually meshes with Clown's. They recognize that Clown’s intimidation of Branzy is surface level, but don’t seem to grasp what’s going on below that to give Branzy his own edge over Clown.
Branzy is a homicidal maniac in his own right, and certainly has aspirations of being the kind of murder machine that Clown is, but he just does not have the fighting skill to back it up, nor was he a particularly skilled engineer when he first joined Lifesteal. At his core, Branzy is a coward. He gravitates towards whichever player or team he thinks is going to protect him, and he'll stroke their ego to get in their good graces. He gets by on his charisma and charm.
Clown, despite having a clear advantage over Branzy, still frequently comes across as uncomfortable with Branzy's attention, while also craving it and seeking it out. He's also a deeply reserved individual. Even when he's emoting he's still very quiet and even tempered. He plays his cards close to his chest. He's a loner. He has his reputation in part because he's unreadable and intimidating. He was coming off of a season where he hadn't died a single time. He’s an unstoppable force without an immovable object.
So here's the scenario: You're a stoic assassin. Usually you like to work alone. Other people slow you down. But you want revenge and you want to execute it in a particular manner that just happens to be outside of your wheelhouse. You have to team up with someone, and it just so happens you know someone with passable talent and a common enemy. You can tell he's afraid of you, and he should be, because he can't even beat Spepticle in a fight, how would he ever take on you?
But he's also... strangely affectionate. You box him in and he lets you, even as he's shaking with fright. You flirt and he flirts back. You're used to letting your reputation speak for itself, but here he is singing your praises to anyone who will listen. He puts all the credit for the collaboration on you, and downplays his own contribution. He sticks around even after you've exacted your revenge, and he still has nothing but good things to say about you, no matter how much you push and prod and scare and tease.
The fundamental difference between Branzy and Clown is vulnerability. Branzy has had no choice but to embrace his, while Clown has done everything in his power to excise it from himself entirely. Branzy allows himself to have big emotions and Clown barely speaks above a whisper at any given moment. When it comes to a fight, of course there isn’t much that can scare Minecraft’s Deadliest Assassin. But Clown has no idea how to navigate emotions, while emotions are Branzy’s greatest asset. People relate to Branzy, they trust him, and he uses it to manipulate them right into their traps. He can trick others’ emotionally as easily as Clown can cut them down with his sword. His relationship with Clown was made on the foundation of betrayal; he sacrificed his alliance with Vitalasy for Clown's protection. It was more important to him to stay on Clown's good side than remain loyal to his previous team, and this is because he felt, with 100% certainty, that Clown offered him more than Vitalasy did. And Vitalasy never saw it coming.
That’s what makes Branzy so terrifying to Clown. Because he trusts Branzy. He lets his guard down around Branzy. He lets himself be vulnerable with Branzy. What if Branzy’s just manipulating him too? Or worse.
What if he’s not?
I love this!!!
Everyone stared at the scars on Count Fwhip’s body, the many scars across his chest and back now fully exposed by the way his shirt and jacket had become tattered in the explosion. He knelt near the center of the explosion site, still having attempted to defuse the device in order to allow others to escape.
Fwhip’s arms came up to try to block the view of his chest, but between his chest and back both being on display, there was nothing he could do to hide his body completely from sight.
He heard the sound of footsteps approaching him and he curled up even tighter, trying to hide from whoever was approaching.
He heard no words following the footsteps stopping in front of him, though he could tell that the figure had crouched down and was doing something.
Fwhip felt cloth fall over his shoulders, covering his body from the gaze of onlookers.
When he glanced up, he was shocked to find Jimmy crouched in front of him. Upon further inspection, the Codfather had given Fwhip his cloak. That was not something to be done lightly. Not in Oceanic cultures. Especially not when done by the ruler of the Codlands.
A Selkie’s coat was their life. To give his to Fwhip, to hide the scars that were so clearly on display, that meant something. Fwhip didn’t know exactly what, but it was something.
Fwhip finally let himself cry, feeling the exposure, the vulnerability of his lack of clothing so keenly now that he was safe from view. Jimmy hid even that from onlookers, pulling Fwhip close and letting the other man hide his tears against Jimmy’s chest or neck.
“I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
Fwhip, against all odds, believed him.
I’ve looked back at old messages of me threatening to ‘castrate you and make you WISH you’d been born with a vagina’ to a friend and I was horrified because I had GENUINELY forgotten that he friend I was talking to was ftm… I showed him the old messages and he had laughed because he knows that I forgot that he didn’t HAVE a duck…
reading old messages is really fucked up because you see things and you’re like i would not fucking say that
Nightwing discovers how often Tim lies to Bruce and he’s horrified bc “you don’t lie to me right? ….right??” And tim has the saddest and most offended expression when he assures him “no of course not!! I’m kinda offended you’d think that I would”
If he’s with the bats Steph, Cass, and Duke are making a face that screams bullshit bc they know he’s lied to dick several times today and it’s only fucking 3am and Damian’s claiming that “drake could never fool him, he’d see through his deception in a millisecond in his asleep whilst suffering from the plague” so Steph just starts listing all the shit Tim’s lied about that damian believed just to watch him get angry and Jason just shrugs when Dick turns to him bc “I’ve never believed a word from that little shit since I met him”
But if he’s with yj, they all make eye contact then walk away giggling and dicks distraught bc “I can’t believe my little brother doesn’t trust me 😔” while Tim looks at the nearest camera in exasperation likes he’s on the office while consoling him in a deadpan tone and dick makes him promise that he won’t lie to him anymore (he lied)