Last blog I had I tagged things, ALL things, and proceeded to literally never go back through any of them. So. Most things will not be tagged! Tags in use under the cut.
I'll use trigger warnings when I remember to, but I dissociate something like 60% of the time I spend awake, so. That's a thing. I'm not gonna stay offline forever bc my brain is broken, don't like don't follow 👍🏼 Also if you try to tell me the way I identify is a slur I absolutely WILL drag you.
#comic is what it says on the tin, comics posted here on hell.com
#story is stories posted here
#fic is fic recs
#psa is either generally important info or How To Not Be A Twatwaffle, by authors and artists for people engaging with works
#funny is stuff that actually made me laugh out loud
#puppies is dogs & wolves
#queer is cool queer stuff and HISTORY GO READ YOUR HISTORY FFS
#myfic and #myart feel self explanatory
#prompt is fic ideas and Pretty Art I may or may not use as a reference to practice different styles when I get a new laptop and can actually use my graphics tablet
#reference is like "how to injuries" and other neat writing things
#started is fics I may or may not have started in response to posts, oops
"the lazarus pit caused his bullshit" "no he was just a completely unhinged psychopath" guys.
GUYS.
every single one of you is ignoring the part where he was kept in a literal cult for anywhere from what, one to three-ish years? do you know how cults work. do you know how they slowly, carefully change your thought patterns to suck you in, even when you know good and damned well it's a cult? do you know what kind of targets they select, the kind of people they prey on? (hint! isolated teens are pretty common prey! especially if they're injured, salty af at the world, and feel like they owe the cult member/s something. like their mind back after being cared for while in that condition, for example)
do you know how much they MINDFUCK YOU ON PURPOSE. hard enough to make dozens to hundreds of people commit mass suicide. hard enough to get VOLUNTARY sex slaves and trafficking victims. hard enough to completely normalize prepubescent kids being married to grown ass adults 30 and up. hard enough that intentionally recruited cult members will recruit people without even realizing that's what's happening. literally after a while all the leader/s have to do is ProfitTM
the league has normalized everything from carefully calculated murder to literal child assassins (to the degree of CASS ffs) to worldwide political meddling (mostly via murder!) to everyone just. being completely chill about this old-ass immortal fuck having/keeping a whole ass grandson for the SOLE PURPOSE of bodyjacking him and then having consistent beef with a literal teenager
do... do any of you know how cult deprogramming works. do you know how long it takes WITH extensive help and support, even with the least fucked up ones that just give you a new spin on a religion and lifestyle so the leader/s can jack your money.
are we really just going to keep ignoring all of this instead of utilizing the more reasonable reasoning (applies with or without long-term pit effects!) to it's full potential
I know they'll never touch it in canon bc DC is lame about actually addressing any sort of interesting new applications of anything for a lot of the more jacked up shit that would provide fun story lines and actual resolution in favor of just never mentioning it again upon pain of death, but not ever having seen this take even once in a discussion or fic makes me sad :(
Pretty sure all he got was Talia saying his death wasn't avenged and her giving him Assassin teachers, but this is definitely a cool idea. Jason being more involved with League of Assassin stuff would be awesome.
he doesn't have to have been a card carrying member of the League, or have been involved in any of their general business, and I'm definitely not saying he was! that'd be a big leap for sure.
but.
Talia, the cult member and faction leader, used a mid stage recruiting tactic by presenting him information that was intentionally skewed to present an image of his family that was wildly inaccurate. He had already "owed" her- consciously or subconsciously, the implicit "I took care of you up until this point" creates a large debt, and shows that she "cares" for him, earlier stage tactics.
Freely "gifting" him this curated information- you really think she couldn't have taken a day or two at literally any point to get better info, which she had the time and resources to do? even without that, that she REALLY thought Bruce would just replace a child? Bruce that she knew well because they dated before splitting because of clashing viewpoints? earlier continuities this is the guy she actively almost stayed to raise a child with before panicking and bolting back home instead on top of that
That "gift", in addition to adding to the debt, took the physical isolation and any thoughts of "ok but why doesn't B know I'm here and not dead???" straight to "oh ok I just didn't have a family in the first place if I'm that replaceable". There's the first few induction steps all in one go, speedrun because there's no outside influence interfering at all. Surrounded by people who see no problem with jacking a mentally vacant kid off the street and taking him off to their base/s followed by yeeting him into the Evil Limeade, and will say exactly zero things about Talia's pissy baby recruit. Because this is clearly perfectly normal and ok.
She gave him safety, someone who cares about him specifically, constantly reinforced those ideas, and led him to "make his own decision" about what to do about Bruce. He made a super definitely uninfluenced choice, and she gave him the "best" way to go about attaining that goal.
Then she deepened that debt (and isolation!) further by providing teachers and gear in the name of that goal.
Assassin teachers. People that trade blood and favors for training. Teachers that Talia hand picked and burned favors, IOUs, and/or exorbitant amounts of cash to secure in the cases where the simple threat of what happens to people saying no to Talia al Ghul wasn't enough. Even if they weren't League- which a majority of them likely were- every single one of them would have by default reinforced that Talia is doing him a massive favor one way or the other- comments about not training a mouthy little shit, possibly anyone at all, unless it was because of her (debt+), any comment wondering what's so special that she's doing that for HIM (Bruce clearly thought he wasn't important... but Talia's putting in all this effort for him? more lovebombing + debt), training being exhausting/painful/distasteful (this is actually BRUCE'S fault, if he'd ever cared enough to just. not let this happen to him. because Talia is giving this to him to help him. It's definitely just B's fault for needing this training in the first place). Every single one of them was perfectly ok with him being trained with these methods at his age and with that particular goal because that's just normal and par for the course, because the al Ghuls are just Like That. So clearly everything Jason is maybe possibly questioning about this is just... well, no one else thinks this is unreasonable, so it isn't unreasonable.
Not only did she save him and care for him in a way Bruce clearly never did, she's putting all this effort and real personal cost (as someone who has also eaten out of trash cans out of necessity, favors are more tangible than cash at certain income levels, they can get you a LOT farther than money can and in ways that I don't have words for they straight up are more valuable, B's loaded self obvs wasn't as Literally Invested because it didn't cost him as much and may also lit just have been a pocket change amount for him because Jason probably still has a limited idea of how having that much money works).
At this point Jason is in late stage conditioning- actively grateful and thanking her for the isolation, false information, and the training that is much more intensive, physically painful, and psychologically damaging than anything he's dealt with before. (Side bonus of almost definitely having limited time to actually consider literally anything clearly due to constantly fluctuating pain levels and sleep deprivation.)
And every single step of the way, starting from showing him the carefully selected information about what was happening in Gotham? She made it his "choice". He chose to stay. He chose to go to each new teacher. He chose to trust her to select those teachers, because she obviously had his best interests in mind... and also because if he chose not to? How would he get that end goal he's after? Who else would help him like she is? Who would give him the training that would actually give him the edge to take on the Bat? There were definitely other people. He could have ditched and found other people, people that he knew had put Bruce on his ass before. There is never any lack of people who want to use Robins to fuck with Bruce and there's overlap there! But not according to what Talia was saying. Obviously no one else would want to help him, they wouldn't care about him like Talia did. None of them would have her resources either (even though some would). Allowing her to handle his training was The Only Way to get what he wanted, and if he chose to leave he would never be able to even get close.
I'm not saying he was a member of the League under Ra's, idk if they were even in the same compound at any point... I'm not saying he ever thought he was a member of the League at all or was in on any League MissionsTM, just that the League as a whole was something he was exposed to that reinforced and normalized what was happening to him, and really a good chunk of them almost definitely just kinda assumed he was now also League because who tf else would be there for training long term with an al Ghul taking a very hands on approach? He was inducted and treated as a member of the cult of Talia. He's one of the people she brought into her faction under her direct control in order to make him into someone as loyal and devoted as the rest of her people, and then she sent him off on a mission that would either end in her favor or allow for an unstable, short term assest to terminate itself.
so you’re telling me this whole time hades, poseidon or zeus couldve just banged a dude?? imagine another big 3 kid rolls into camp and they’re like “oh ur dad broke the oath… which means you’re gonna have to pay for it…” and this kids like “lol which dad?”
adding onto this, imagine being gay and you’re banging a dude and you’re like thinkin to urself “wow this is great, i can bang all i want, i don’t even need to worry abt kids” and then ur hookup comes over and is like “hhhhey, man, so im actually an ancient godly being and this is our kid. take care of it! try not to let it get killed. toodles!”
Even worse, imagine thinking you're safe bc you're ace but then this woman who you bonded with over your grad thesis shows up at your door with a baby like "I'm actually a Greek goddess and this is our child born from how much we vibed about 18th century French literature"
I would literally sue the entire pantheon for emotional damages and child support
On his 16th birthday, Jason's soulmate was supposed to teleport in front of him. Problem is, he was still dead when his birthday rolled around, preventing his soulmate from teleporting to him. Thankfully, he was alive when his soulmate turned 16. Or not so thankfully maybe considering he was covered in blood from his last LOA mission and his soulmate was fighting angry hotdogs.
Actually, this makes the childification of Michael in the movie when he’s 15 in the book really funny:
Sophie, a 20-ish year old woman from a fantasy land where getting married at 16 or 17 does not seem to be unusual: Yes, this is a young man who is almost an adult.
Howl, a man in his late 20s from our world: This is a BABY and he does BABY things.
“The sound of gunshots is nothing unusual in Gotham. So when my parents died, it didn’t draw any attention. I was alone with my parents’ bodies for ninety minutes before a beat cop happened to pass by.”
gonna be thinking about that panel for the rest of my life, just so you know
oh my friend it changed MY ENTIRE LIFE when i first read it a couple months ago. like woah. the wayne murder is one of those batman moments that is repeated and mentioned every two weeks that it's made everyone almost desensitised to seeing it in a story. with so much going on in the canon, especially recently, this murder we know so much about it nothing special or provoking anymore.
but then they dropped this page and its like. oh. oh okay. this is a bit too real now. it grossly simplifies the event in a way i haven't seen before because of how casually bruce just says it and it is suddenly the most impactful retelling of that night i have ever read.
'it was nothing unusual' 'i was alone with my parents' bodies for ninety minutes' yeah can u hear that yeah it's just me SOBBING MY EYES OUT
if i can impart any one piece of wisdom to y’all, it’s to, whenever possible, assume good intentions
assume people are trying their best, want to be good and treat others well, and that when their behavior doesn’t align with those goals, it’s because of outside factors that are pushing them to their limit
it’s hard to do, it doesn’t always come naturally, but it’s worth it
before anyone jumps in with an “op has clearly never worked in the service industry,” i work in a public facing library job
i have a patron who is mean as a snake. won’t respond when you greet her, barks orders at you, and is generally nasty
i couldn’t stand her & dreaded the moment she walked in the door, until i stopped one day & went “wow, to walk around feeling unhappy enough to treat people so horribly every day. what a difficult way to live.”
and so my tactics changed. i made a point to be extra kind & friendly to her. she changed her hair color one day & when i complimented her on it, she was very caught off guard & said “oh, thank you. my whole life i’ve thought i was ugly.”
now we’re at the point where she shows me pictures of watercolor paintings she made & says hi when she walks in the door. she’s not my favorite patron, but she’s perfectly okay. most unpleasant people aren’t inherently rotten, they’re just unhappy & coping with it poorly
assume people are always doing their best, even if their best happens to fall a bit short. assume good intentions
can you imagine how freaky shark mermaids would be like unlike sharks, shark mermaids would have actual arms/hands and could rely on touching things with their hands to see if they’re prey rather than having to bite like sharks do. like youre just swimming in the ocean and suddenly you feel a strong grip on your leg, you freak the FUCK out because uh what????? the fuck??? youre swimming alone in the ocean??
a head pops out of the water, dorsal fin pointed from its back and it just points at you and says in a low whisper: “i thought you were a seal. please dont swim alone like this, im sorry i scared you i just wanted to see what you are” and then disappears back into the depth. what the fuck.
underwater girlfriend
underwater wife
underwater love
of my underwater life
underwater benefits
to underwater studies
turning underwater sharks
into underwater buddies
underwater lovers are
the partly sharky sirens
seen if you’ve achieved degrees
in underwater science
instead of telling the batfam he's alive again Jason just sneaks into the cave and starts reguarly changing the plaque on his memorial case to see how long it takes before anyone notices.
Dick, glancing at the case as he walks by: ok seriously who's doing this?! last week Jason's memorial plaque said 'I pissed in the ice maker two days ago' and now it says 'dicks the one who broke the golden vase'!
Tim: don't look at me, it said 'I still don't know what a post mortem is and at this point I'm too afraid to ask' a few days ago and I was so confused I got distracted on patrol and got shot in the arm
Dick: it's really starting to freak Bruce out, who could it be?
Damian, not looking up from the computer: it's Todd. I've been helping him sneak in every few days since he came back to Gotham.
Dick:
Tim:
Dick: what the FUCK are you TALKING about-
Tim: why the fuck-
Damian: I was told to partake in more 'child friendly activities'.
Dick & Tim:
Damian: I thought it was obviously Todd. Last month he changed it to 'btw I already tried, the costume doesn't fit anymore :(' who else would that be?
Ace the bat hound becomes a ghost dog because he's such a good boy and dedicated to justice. Inspired off of this post here.
But, instead of being found out by Danny, it's the batfam's usual mystic contacts, like Constantine, that discover and reunite Ace and the Bats. Constantine muttering about how annoyingly resilient the particular brand of ghost is. From the infinite realms, Ghosts from there are a headache and a half to get rid of but portals, information, and really anything about it is far and few between since no one's been able to get into contact since some fight a couple centuries ago (Dark being sealed away). Justice Leauge Dark promises to let the family know if they hear anything or find any relevant information about the Infinite Realms, but since literally nothing has been heard from them in so long, no one really knows anything off the top of their head about it.
While Ace is technically supposed to be hidden away at home, he ends up sneaking along one day to help deal with Joker after the clown kidnaps Nightwing and/or Robin (Damian). The photos and videos of the event are blurry and smudged, but word of mouth gets around, and soon, the entirety of Gotham is celebrating the return of Bat Hound the Ghost, the very good boy back from the grave.
Meanwhile, things are going great for the family, just having Ace back makes everyone feel just a bit better (because Ace is a full ghost with a core and is helping to filter the currupt ectoplasm called Lazarus Water with physical touch). Jason is over more often and enjoys flopping on the couch with Ace for a quick snooze, Dick is over the moon to fight with Ace by his side again, Damian makes sure Ace is properly introduced to the rest of the animals that live at the mansion, Tim actually falls asleep semi-regularly now after Ace starts bothering him about being awake, and everyone else is reaping the benefits of having a bat trained dog that seems to be able to sniff out when they need a dog to pet.
Then these guys in white show up.
Ace had seemingly been on edge all night and when it was time to turn in for the night and let Signal come out for the day, Ace follows along, not listening to any command to stay home. Some of the others stay ready in the cave but they let Signal and Ace go out with the promise to call the moment something big happens.
Now, up until then, Ace's powers had been tallied up to: intangibility, invisibility, and occasional hovering/heightened jump. Every other exercise responded out as normal dog (except for the whole being dead thing). Maybe slightly higher emotional intelligence, but some dogs are just Like That. Through some tests, they do find that Ace has a new found hatred of Lazarus Water, but they don't find any obvious weakness that isn't a banishment spell which is as worrying as it is a relief.
So when these white suits start shooting using guns that glow the same green as Ace in Signals' vision and the shoots hit? Ace yelps in pain before seemingly barking out some kind of energy ball? And barreling into a wall so hard it cracked from another shot? Every single alarm that Signal can think to trip gets set off.
But not before one of the suits (one of the many suits, they're terrible fighters but there's just so many of them and two of them) takes out something that looks like a thermos and points it at Ace.
Within a second, Ace is gone.
Signal is so shocked he almost gets hit himself by the dozens of shots of energy blasts now aimed at him. He can't get to the white van in time before it speeds off.
----
I'm going to end this part here. I'm going to continue this in the reblogs but I also want people to take a crack at this story themselves! If you're inspired by this please put your thoughts or stories in the reblogs or tags!
In the ensuing car chase, someone manages to get a tracker on the van before it leaves the city, needing to bail due to the new energy weapons causing massive property damage. But that van didn't contain every GIW agent that came to Gotham. The ones caught by Signal and those still lingering in Gotham get to experience the first wave of the Batfamily's protective wave of terror.
While Bruce orders everyone to stay in the city until they find out more about these new weapons, who these people are, and what they want with Ace: Dick, Jason, and Damian are already heading out of Gotham to follow that tracker. Because like hell, they're going to just wait to go after Ace.
What they find is so so much more than they thought when they originally went after Ace.
They easily break into the facility, it's like laughably easy, and get to the main servers so Tim and Barbra can start combing through for information. For a while, they can't find Ace anywhere, and it terrifies them (but they'll never admit the last part) until they start looking back through the security footage. They showed up about two hours after the van with Ace arrived. Somebody else showed up only 15 minutes after Ace arrived. The camera's capture them and Ace in better quality then any of the bats cameras have before.
A young teen wearing a hazmat suit with a giant glowing green dog. Systematically collecting all of the glowing animals and blobs around the facility while fighting off the GIW at the same time. Until they reach Ace's cage.
The teen is caught up in fighting a new wave of GIW (non-leathly, some basic karate training but mostly self taught) while the green dog sniffs at Ace. The dog suddenly shrinks down and starts prancing around Ace's cage with excitement. The teen takes a few seconds to make a break in the fighting with an ice wall before flying over and opening the cage with barely a glance inside.
Together, the three fight through the rest of the GIW easily. Not perfectly though, the teen gets caught up in banter more than once and gets nicked more than once while distracted. The green dog (the puppy, Damian corrects with seathing rage when he gets a good look at the dogs smaller form) listens to a few of the commands given by the teen but is otherwise a bull in a China shop, simply plowing into the agents and destroying what he can without being hurt.
Ace is a blur of glowing fur, using all the skills he can without a bat there to help him. But he hasn't had to actually dodge gun fire since he died, and it's suddenly very obvious that Ace has either been under using his powers or has developed new ones. By the end of the fight, Ace is clearly battered up along with the teen and puppy.
It's at the same moment that they watch the puppy grow again and dig into the ground, causing a glowing green portal to appear, that Tim finds a lead in the files. Watching the teen ("Phantom, according to the files.") guide Ace into the portal ("a friend, activist, trained at a vet clinic, truthful, wants to help." Cass lipreads as best she can with the fuzz) while the puppy ("Cujo") fly's around happily before following along. Then, the portal closes. An hour before the bats arrived.
"Oh also, Phantom is apparently a local town hero of Amity Park in Illinois. They've apparently tried to send hundreds of Justice League Alerts, but there's an information lock down around the town. They've dealt with at least one Justice League level threat but apparently his existence is deemed illegal by something called the Anti-Ecto Laws, passed in 1835, that nobody thought to repeal yet despite the fact that it's an obvious spit in the face of Meta rights." Barbra informs them as everyone pauses for a minute to let everything sink in.
"Red Robin, Oracle. Inform Clark and Lois about the situation." Bruce says in a seemingly calm manner, "You three, collect any physical information that you can then return to the cave. Once we've more thoroughly gone through their servers, we'll inform Justice League Dark about the situation."
-
Meanwhile, Danny is working with Sam to heal up after the fight:
"The collar doesn't have an address on the back, just says,"Bat-hound, return to Batman. "
"I've heard a bit about him at galas before when my parents forced me to attend. Apparently, he's supposed to be some kind of hero? I don't know, i tried to ask once and got laughed at, so I never got around to learning."
"Well, Cujo really likes having a new playmate. Bat-hound seems to be struggling with some of his powers at the moment. Once we've dealt with that, then we'll deal with the whole Batman thing."
Ghost King Phantom answers a summons to a new dimension to find a sacrificial offering in three magic circles. One, holding Bizarro, another holding Artimus and the one in front holding Red Hood.
Phantom has no idea who these people are, but he knows the people in charge must be powerful mages or whatever. Doesn't matter. None of the mages hes ever had to face had known about his Halfa status so naturally thier wards and protections wouldn't work on him. He captures the kid with a naselly voice and his orange cat in a force field to give to Jazz later. She had been talking about wanting to study the psychology of a supernatural being for a while now so he'd help her out.
He made quick work of the other mages before turning around and facing the "sacrifices" the two in the back were still out cold but the one in front, the one in the red helm was radiating terror and rage. He was shaking even though Phantom hadn't done anything to him and had no intentions to. Danny landed outside the circle, trying to whisper something conforting as he stepped closer.
The moment he stepped into the ring however, the red runes turned into a bright green and the three circles disappeared. Danny didn't feel any different so he assumed it was nothing and he freed the captives before disappearing, none the wiser that Klarion the Witchboy had made a few translation mistakes in the slave contract and accidentally married a terrified Red Hood to Phantom, the High King of the Undead and King of the Lazarus dimension, also known as the Infinite Realms.
Danny probably learns he married that guy at some point but just kinda shrugs it off. Polygamy is legal in the realms and thier marriage doesn't change much. Sure, Danny is practically contractually obligated to save this guy if he's ever in mortal peril but Danny has no problems with that. He'd do it anyway.
So he just ignores the situation hoping it doesn't come up again.
It does.
Repeatedly.
I'm so surprised we don't have more Dead on Main ghost king marriage aus where Jason/the pit inside of him is terrified of Phantom. Let's change that
What if when Danny gets summoned he just appears as a terrifying eldritch horror and he doesn't realize he's speaking ghost speak (which for this Jason doesn't know) so from his perspective he comforted the random guy and explained "hey dude were married now but its not a big deal so dont worry i dont expect anything from you." But from Jason's perspective it's just this giant monster that was summoned, he was the only one choosen of 3 sacrifices, and he is now bound to it and it (maybe) owns him/his soul according to John Constantin
