people don't talk enough about how fucking funny it is that bruce can sub in his kids as batman when he's too busy. like can you imagine it from the league's perspective? imagine you have this really mysterious, geniusly scary guy that you know next to nothing about, never cracks a smile and yet always comes out on top, and one day he shows up to a league meeting and there's just something... off. about him.
you can't pin it down because he's literally acting exactly the same as usual and there's no reason to think there's anything wrong, but maybe he shifted in his seat one to many times, or he looked just a tad bit too bored during green lantern's case review, but something's just... odd. so you quietly ask superman after the meeting if anything's up with the bat bcs you know those two are closer and also clark can hear heartbeats so if something's wrong surely he'll pick it up? and without hesitation he leans over to you and mumbles 'yeah batman was busy, that's his 17 yr old son. he's a crime lord and kills people sometimes though so we're not allowed to let him into the weapons department.' and then walks away like it's normal.
like the whiplash the league must go through every time they realise that no, this is not their fearless dark and brooding leader, this is in fact one of his dipshit kids being forced to sub in bcs the real batman broke an ankle, is incredible.
wonder woman: so that's my proposed plan, what are your thoughts batman?
batman: hn. i think that- *voice raising two octaves* oh shit hold on my phones buzzing
the league:
batman, answering the phone and immediately dropping the Bat Posture™: what do you mean- aw come on little wing that's not fair! but- no, NO DON'T YOU DARE TELL ALFRED I'LL BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF YOU- IM SORRY OK I'LL BUY YOU MORE- *catches sight of the league watching him, baffled* *stiffens* ok listen i promise to replace them but i gotta go, please show me mercy iloveyoubye *hangs up*
the league:
batman:
batman: *coughs awkwardly*
superman: *sighs*
batman, to superman: ...red hood found out i ate his chocolate pretzels-
superman, shaking his head: just... just stop.
the flash: so this isn't batman either, is it?
wonder woman: if this one's also a criminal im losing my mind.
superman, tiredly: no no, this one isn't a criminal. this one's actually a cop.
batman: *sinks down in his seat* b's gonna kill me
green lantern, mystified: where does he keep GETTING you all from!?
'batman' dick, who made a pact with jason to Always Fuck With Bruce Whenever The Opportunity Arises: batman is a whore.
they think they've finally sussed out all 2 of batman's kids and then one day during a meeting 'batman' ends up on a 30 minute rant about different hacking methods this tech villain could be using that results in him half way through a sentence breaking off to say '-oh uncle clark could you pass me that pen- thanks, anyway so-' and then five minutes after that when the league have all been exchanging incredulous looks he finally freezes and is like. SHIT.
wonder woman: you're different from the other two, aren't you?
batman: maybe i am maybe i'm not, you can't prove it.
wonder woman:
green lantern: so like, are you new or have you just managed to avoid sub duty up until now?
superman, coughing: actually, this is this ones ninth occasion of replacing batman. you've just never realised before.
the league:
batman: yeah actually the other two are kinda mad i lasted longer than them...
the flash: how the fuck does he keep getting kids with the exact same build as him!??!?
'batman' tim, spent 20 minutes padding the suit out so he would look the part, still mad that bruce keeps palming WE work off on him: oh he forces us to take steroids for it.
the league, concerned:
superman, pinching the bridge of his nose: now come on red robin-
batman, fully tearing up and looking distraught: PLEASE uncle clark, it HURTS, you can't keep COVERING FOR HIM!
superman, frantically to the league: this one lies.
bonus
the league, squinting at batman:
the league: ...
superman: *head in his hands, too disappointed to do anything*
the league: *silently exchanging looks, wondering if anybody's brave enough to say anything*
duke as batman, fully aware this is fucking stupid but jason and tim fell on the floor laughing when dick came up with the idea and frankly, he wanted to see if anybody would have to guts to call him out: so, are we all ready to start the meeting?
i cry at night
Bruce: Congratulations, Jason! You’re the first of my kids to graduate college!
Dick: Yeah, first and only one for all eternity!
Bruce: *Ignoring Dick by sheer willpower* Anyway, what are you planning to do next?
Jason: I think I’m going to continue my education in English Lit.
Bruce: *nervously* Great. You’ll get a Master’s Degree, right?
Jason: …
Bruce: …right?
Jason: Actually, I’m going for a PhD.
Bruce: This is a terrible joke. You’re over the supervillainy, right, Jay?
Jason: Look, my application to GothamU’s PhD program was accepted!
Bruce: No child! Of mine! Will get! A PhD!!!
Jason: I’m hoping to be a literature professor at GothamU, if I survive long enough.
Bruce: *screams incoherently*
Dick: I think you broke him.
a butter me is coming.
There are a lot of What-ifs when it comes to jason todd. What would've happened if bruce didn't take jason in? what if jason was taken in by selina and became stray? what if jason didn't die?what if jason was found before the lazarus pit? but one that i don't see at all is what if jason didn't come back and just stayed with the All Caste?
The Lost Days arc would go about the same as in canon (without the talia thing because ew), but after the car bomb thing doesn't pan out jason just starts looking into the batfam more. He sees his dad for the first time in years. He forgets everything and considers coming back home.
But then he finds out how his death was handled
Of course he'd still be pissed off about tim becoming robin, but more than that bruce and dick spun it so people though tim was the second robin. Jason's whole identity was usurped, and was prompted by alfred of all people. Add to that the memorial case and the victim blaming, as well as him not having a memorial in titans tower and tim talking shit about him every chance he gets and jason starts to lose hope. But these things could be fixed! These could all be explained away as emotionally incompetent people compartmentaling in order to get over their grief! right?
Then he finds the footage of dick killing the joker for tim. Sure, the joker taunted dick using jason's memory, but it was him thinking tim was dwad that really set him off. The final nail in the coffin would be bruce reviving the joker. Jason now has proof that 1. tim was indeed his replacement, and 2. Bruce's morals and dick's clean hands are worth more than his mangled corpse.
He scraps all of his plans because now he KNOWS that bruce would never kill the joker for him. Disillusioned with bruce and gotham in general, he sneaks into arkham and pits a bullet in the joker's skull, then goes to the all caste for training. If they didn't care about him, why should he care about them?
I think ducra would be less wary about training jason in this au, since his drive for revenge had dissipated, and he wouldn't "bring great evil into this world."
Since ducra wouldn't really show favouritism to jason, since he isn't as much of a flight risk or a time bomb, i think his and essence's relationship would go way better than in canon. Their main points of contention were jason leaving the caste and ducra's favouritism, and without those 2 factors, their relationship could actually flourish.
Due to the all blades being linked to the soul, it would make sense if the caste taught soul magic. This would make jason a way better fighter than any baseline vigilante or assassin. Maybe he could use his abilities to hide his body language to avoid shiva and cass' ability? The all caste doesn't get massacred here, so he learns how to really socialise, talk with people with different experiences, so he could occasionally go back to the alley or the hill to reconnect with his old friends, like dana or numbers, since he wouldn't push people away like in canon.
The untitled wouldn't be as big of a threat as they were in RHatO since there are way more people available, and jason being super trained, so maybe jason would adopt a new vigilante identity to help people on a more personal level. He considers going by Red Hood, as a taunt to the man that killed him, but he doesn't like it. It's a remnant of a past he'd rather forget. Maybe he'd go by cardinal, but he doesn't want to be associated with a bird anymore. I think marauder would be a really good name for him, a man who goes around looking for things to steal and people to fight.
You can have him interact with some justice league dark members, especially Constantine since I really like their dynamic, and he could deal with hellspawns since he wields the allblades now.
JayEssence is a rarepair, which is a shame since i think these 2 could have a really interesting dynamic if written properly, so I'd probably go with that as the endgame ship, but you could work in so many of his ships. JayRose? childhood friends on the titans who reconnected after jason studied under slade for a bit. JayEddie? same thing but they reconnect in hell. Jaytemis? they could run into eachother during a mission and they'd recognise death anywhere. enemies to reluctant allies to lovers. JayDana? classic childhood friends to lovers. The possibilities are endless
Dragons are extraordinarily good mimics, escaping human predation by disguising themselves as common airliners, some even going so far as to sport crude copies of carrier logos. This makes them difficult to track, though most sources agree that the dragon population is critically endangered.
While there has been some success with halting large-scale dragon hunting, conservationists are still concerned about a recent spate of crashes in otherwise healthy adults.
Given that dragons communicate via radio signals and that most crashes occur near military radar stations, it is theorized that the radar may be disorienting the dragons. Investigations are still ongoing.
REBLOG: go to your blog and click the egg to see what hatches
I’m so excited to share this with everyone!! This is definitely the biggest project I’ve ever done before and I’m so proud with how it came out
Enjoy the little gay ghost guys!!!👻👻👻
“See man, the moon!” Kid Flash said as they came outside, standing on the pile of rubble.
“And Superman! Do we fulfill our promises or what…” his voice trails off as a grinding clanking sound echoes behind them.
They turned around, confused to see a tricked out pale yellow Volkswagen bug trucking its way up the rubble and crumbled building blocks. It stopped before it got too steep, a man in a familiar white lab coat stumbling out.
Immediately, they were on guard, the man haphazardly climbing towards them.
Robin drew two batarangs in each hand, standing in front of Superboy as he got closer. It didn’t even matter that the Justice League had just landed behind them, if this CADMUS scientist tried something, Robin would be the first to defend Superboy. Without hesitance.
The man stopped in front of them, huffing for breath.
“You’re-!” He stopped, leaning over his knees with gasping breaths, “Sorry, one sec!” He held up a finger, gasping for another few seconds before stepping forward-
Chains of water surrounded him before they could blink, Robin looking back surprised to see Aqualad standing with extended weapons and a grim face.
“This is odd.” The man looked at the water wrapped around him, wriggling a bit before shrugging. His eyes zeroed in on Superboy, “You’re okay!” He said with a blinding grin.
Superboy recoiled and Robin immediately stepped between them.
“What.”
The man glanced at him briefly before looking back over Robin’s head, “You are okay right? I mean I tried my best but I couldn’t figure out a way to get you out- I mean if I’d known you were there to begin with I’d would have never-but then I wouldn’t have-
“Who are you?” Superman asks, suddenly close from behind them.
The man’s mouth clicks shut, looking between them all before a grimacing smile rises to his face.
He extends his hand at the elbow between the liquid chains, “Dr. Danny Fenton, ex-biochemical engineer of CADMUS labs Mr.Superman,sir.”
Flash zips forward, the eyes of his cowl narrowed, “Ex?”
The grimace turns into a wince. “Oh.. heh, yeah, I’ve found that arson is usually a pretty good kickstart of sudden unemployment,” there’s a thoughtful pause as he looks over the rubble, “It’s usually accidental though.”
Nobody responds.
“What? You didn’t think that lab fire started on its own did you? How else was I supposed to get you here?”
“There’s a Justice League public phone! That’s literally its entire purpose!” Kid Flash shouts, throwing his hands in the air. At this point, Aqualad cautiously lowers his water bearers, releasing Fenton.
“Oh, sure, I call a bunch of superheroes and tell them my boss is doing a Grow-Your-Own-Superman in the boiler room. That’d go over well.” He pauses, “Though the sidekicks was a surprise.”
The comment goes uncorrected, as the rest of the league has snapped to face Superboy the moment he says it.
Superman looks stricken as Superboy reveals the logo on his torn shirt.
Fenton unceremoniously breaks the tension, “Sorry I never asked, do you have a name? I’d feel really bad just calling you-“
“… They called me.. Superboy..” He says, still not looking away from the man of steel in front of him.
“That’s not-“ Fenton rubs his temples and sighs harshly, “Okay, I can fix that later, whatever-“
“You’re not gonna be ‘fixing’ anything, Doctor.” Robin snarls.
Fenton blinks. “Huh?”
Batman steps forward, “Green Lantern.”
Green construct cuffs snap around the Dr.Fenton’s wrists, though he looks at them puzzled.
“Superman, check for survivors in the damage, Flash find some salvageable evidence before it finishes burning. The rest of us, we’ll continue this interrogation at the hall.”
“Wait what?” Dr. Fenton says, perking up like a meerkat even as Batman turns away with swirl of his cape.
“What about me?” Superboy asks, desperation in his hesitant step forward.
Batman looks to Superman. Superman nods, and then shoots off into the rubble and emergency vehicles.
“For now, you come with us.” Batman says, and Superboy’s shoulders loosen just a hint.
The dark knight pauses again before turning completely, “And don’t think we’ve forgotten the rest of you,” he says, cowled eyes narrowed over his shoulder, “Robin.”
Robin shirks back, “Heh.. Right.”
“Wait what’s going on?” The Fenton scientist yelled back over his shoulder as Green Lantern pulls him away.
He starts to say something but the construct fully engulfs him now, shifting from a platform to a soundproof bubble.
It seems to shock him enough, Fenton tapping at the walls and looking like he wants to take it apart and take a sample.
Robin grit his teeth.
He was not gonna let these CADMUS freaks touch Superboy again.
Not Fenton or anybody else.
it’s a kid show and i watch it proudly
Nothing wrong with enjoying something meant for kids
Live a little
with the avatar the last airbender renaissance comes a lot of ppl who r attempting 2 justify their rewatching it/watching it by saying its “not just a kids show” bc it involved dark themes. but by saying that its not just a kids show, u r insulting and undermining the show at its core. atla is a kids show, its a kids show that treated its audience with respect by not watering anything down and its a damn good show for it. atla is first and foremost a kids show and its still fucking better than most “adult” shows/cartoons that are cynical n overly violent. katara doesnt need to stab ppl with her icicles, toph doesnt need to swear, and it doesnt need to be overly grim. its a cartoon that was silly and goofy and optimistic even while being about a 100 year long war and all the horrors that came with it and it had a happy well deserved ending and it was for kids but is still good. i cant properly express why it rubs me the wrong way when i see someone say “atla isnt a kids show” but i cant keep seeing that being spread without saying my distaste for that statement.
Periodic reminder that you are not immune to reactionary radicalization through fandom.
We all know the "jokes" about how old bronies either came out as queer or became fascists - except they're not really jokes, and a lot of the queer ones admit to having been in the pipeline before they came out (some in a way that implies they never totally got out of said pipeline and don't understand the gravity of it),
GamerGate was an entire right-wing reactionary movement that was - and this is not hyperbole - partially responsible for turning fascism into a "legitimate" position by the American Overton window, composed entirely of people who feared losing their fan spaces,
We've had terfs right here on tumblr dot com BRAGGING about how useful fandom is as a recruiting space,
TJLC was a big pipeline for acephobia on this hellsite in particular, when people argued that headcanoning Sherlock as ace was inherently homophobic because it was denying a TOTALLY GONNA BE CANON (while the creators were promising that it wasn't going to be canon) gay pairing, and puritanical, and just HAVING that headcanon was saying that people COULDN'T ship Johnlock, all in the interest of a "fake" sexuality and "pretending to be oppressed" and oh whoops there you went,
We see people who all but center their fandom activity and identities around figuring out which people in predominantly queer fandom spaces are SECRETLY PEDOPHILES AND GROOMERS, acting consciously or otherwise under the assumption that predominantly queer fandom spaces are just massively infested with them in a way that other spaces are not for SOME reason, who twist the definition of "pedophilia" in these spaces until it covers shipping a 17-year old fictional character with an 18-year old fictional character, or a 30-year old with a 45-year old, or including an autistic character in a ship, and drawing two 17-year old characters kissing constitutes "child porn", and who unironically say we should bring back the Hays Code and Censorship Is Good Actually And Our Problem Is We Don't Do It Enough and this often becomes a pipeline to "sex ed is child abuse; people shouldn't even know what sex is until they turn 18; you need my consent to wear certain outfits in public if I see them as sexually charged, and Pride SHOULD be an assimilationist sideshow for our corporate overlords family-friendly party with no sadness or anger or ESPECIALLY acknowledgement of sex allowed",
We've seen otherwise progressive people defend literal hate symbols in fanart when pushback against the above brand of reactionaries gets corrupted into zero-nuance "it's us vs. them so anything they don't like is Good",
Even outside of those examples some of the most vicious, unapologetic, blatant queerphobic abuse I've seen in recent years hasn't come from right-wingers but from LGBT+ people, dressing their deep, violent, seething hatred for queer people who aren't exactly like them in a thin veneer of progressive language, who have become so convinced that they're the main character of the fucking universe that they think writing or enjoying a queer story that doesn't resonate with them is more queerphobic than sending a queer person who writes or enjoys such a story countless rape and death threats and denying their identity,
We've seen these examples again and again and again, and we keep seeing it again and again and again, so I am once again on my knees BEGGING people to recognize that this is not Something That Happens To Other, BAD People, or Something That Happens To People In BAD Fandoms, or Something That Happens To People On The OTHER Side Of Perennial Drama; this is something that CAN happen to you.
These things are the result of the fact that fandom is, by nature, a place of heightened emotion and if you don't know what to look out for that is very exploitable; you need to know the methods people use to do this, simply Being In The Right Fandoms or Liking The Right Ships is not enough.
So, if you see someone trying to convince you that you have the ONLY valid approach to any specific character, or ship, or show, or whatever, that your ship is activism and your fanfics are praxis, and liking something else or liking the same thing differently is Only For Bad People, that is the single biggest red flag that YOU NEED TO RUN, THEY'RE TRYING TO SELL YOU SOMETHING THAT YOU DO NOT WANT