“Average household has 2.3 children” factoid actually just statistical error. Robins Georg, who lives in cave and adopts over 10,000 each day, is an outlier and should not have been counted

it has become fashionable to say things like "fanon is wrong about tim!!! his parents loved him and he wasn't neglected" and i'm always just like. girl he was a little neglected

(Vía @crowtwink )

@zahnie i am kind of mad tbh bc now i keep thinking about that leverage/batman crossover and it’s ridiculous. they’re using a charity gala as a way to get into the manor. eliot immediately pegs alfred for former mi6, but he can’t figure out what the fuck bruce’s deal is. something about the way he stands or the way he watches the room or his shoulders or something. “is it not distinctive enough?” “oh, it’s distinctive as hell, i just don’t know what it is”. let’s say it’s older bruce so hardison has to get into a hacker fight with tim. sophie can’t grift bc there are too many rich people who’d recognize her in attendance. parker can’t infiltrate the catering service because they run that shit tighter than the white house (WHY is he so paranoid about his CATERERS what the HELL i’ve seen BANKS less lax about tracking employees than this) so she has to pretend to be a model. that backfires so fast because bruce is so nice and wants to know if she’s okay bc she seems uncomfortable. parker is thrilled when she discovers the house is full of secret passages but that also ends poorly when she turns a corner and bruce is standing there like “hey there, you seem lost”. he’s still wearing the tux and drinking his champagne. he helpfully guides her to the bathroom since she is having such trouble finding it. eliot has a tense standoff with alfred bc this is wayne manor alfred and that means he is like an older, british eliot who’ll shoot a motherfucker. hardison and tim get distracted playing wow together and it isn’t clear exactly how that happened. there has to be at least one scene where eliot and bruce are fighting and the rest of the team just watches instead of doing anything useful because it’s actually kind of really hot. they don’t even really hurt each other so it’s fine. probably fine. just let them keep pinning each other to the floor for a while, it’s fine. bruce has a lot of helpful critiques for nate’s plan that nate does not appreciate. the obvious thing is that they figure out he’s batman but it’s kind of funnier if they don’t and just think bruce wayne is an inexplicable bamf. they’ve all learned a valuable lesson about judging people based on appearances. bruce flirts with sophie and nate pretends not to be bitter about it but he gazes out at the gotham skyline and broods. it’s just what happens when you’re in gotham. it’s a very broodworthy skyline. make fun of batman all you want but you look out at that skyline and try not to brood. you can’t. even superman broods. i mean, he looks like he’s brooding. he’s usually trying to remember if he left the oven on because every time he decides to make himself a nice dinner a supervillain attacks and four hours later his baked ziti is charcoal. it still counts as brooding. nate never stood a chance.

“Parker, if he so much as gives you a bad feeling I want you to get the hell out of there as fast as you can.”

“What?” Parker looked back over her shoulder at the man currently adorned with three blondes, five brunettes, and a redhead. “Why?”

“Something’s not right,” Eliot said, which wasn’t an explanation at all.

“Think you can maybe give us a little more to go on than that?” Nate asked, the kind of sardonic authority that was easy to pull off when he wasn’t even in the building.

“No,” Eliot snapped. “I don’t know what the hell it is, I just know it’s bad news.” MI6 in the way he held his champagne and CIA in the way he stood and a soldier in his shoulders and Interpol in the way he looked around the room – no, CIA again – no, FBI – League of Assassins? Obviously not that, couldn’t have been that, so what exactly was it that had him wanting to grab Parker and get the hell out? If he could get closer he might be able to tell, the mezzanine might as well have been a different building entirely for all the good it did him. All forest, no trees.

“Not distinctive enough?” Hardison asked, but it wasn’t a real question.

“Too distinctive,” Eliot answered, even though he knew Hardison didn’t actually care. “I’ve just never seen it before.”

“If you’ll pardon the intrusion, sir,” said a voice not in Eliot’s ear, and he did not make it obvious how he stiffened at the address. Eliot turned, let harmless confusion and interest soften his face.

The butler, the one he’d seen before. Pennyworth. That familiar combination of MI6 and Interpol, muddied with domestic service but present all the same.

“May I have your name?” the butler asked, his hair was white but his eyes were sharp.

“Isaac Easton,” Eliot lied automatically. “Is something wrong?”

Mr. Pennyworth exuded serene amusement. “So sorry,” he said, “but I’m afraid you’re not Mr. Easton.”

“Don’t try to deny it,” Sophie said in Eliot’s ear before he could respond. “He couldn’t make it so he told you to come.”

“You caught me,” Eliot said, sheepish. “Turned out he had some kind of a family thing, said I could use his invite. Didn’t think anyone’d notice if I used his name. He’ll be flattered you remember him.”

It was unclear if Pennyworth bought this story, as placid as before. “I don’t, actually,” he said. “But I’ve always made it a point to examine the guest lists personally. If there were meant to be a former green beret in attendance, I would know about it.”

Eliot was, for the most fleeting of moments, stunned.

The butler smiled. It was not kind. “The way you watch the crowd,” he explained. “It’s very distinctive.”

Eliot froze. He frowned. His brow furrowed.

If Hardison laughed any harder, he was going to hurt himself.

ok but, the leverage crew definitely aren’t conning the bats right? they’re after someone else, & want into the manor for some paperwork bruce specifically keeps in his home office cuz it’s less weird if your house where your kids live is more fortified than the average military base. except, obviously bruce has this paperwork cuz he is also after whoever it is, maybe as batman or maybe just as a rich guy who has tricked all the other rich guys into thinking he’s also a shitbag so they brag to him about all their shitbag exploits

which is to say. leverage crew are unknowingly speedrunning this guy’s demise. bruce was already handling it, he’s just content to play a longer game cuz taking down evil rich guys who do run-of-the-mill rich people crimes and not, y'know, increasingly elaborate supervillain crimes often involving fun new dangerous chemicals and explosives is the batman equivalent of a hobby. he combs thru the banking records of gotham’s elite to relax

and. because in both the leverage crew and the batfam’s experience people who have a very particular skillset and are lying about it do not mean well, they spend the whole gala convinced the other group are Villains.

so the longer the job takes the more nate suggests maybe they just bail, guys, they can find another angle that doesn’t need those files, they have definitely stumbled into something bigger here and he has no idea who bruce wayne actually is but he does not want to piss him off, while parker and eliot stubbornly refuse to leave because, no, they are figuring out what the fuck wayne’s deal is. hardison is having too much fun talking to tim to take a side. sophie can’t decide if the inevitability of someone being stabbed is worth finding out why dick grayson is subtly grilling her about a few very specific pieces of artwork and their exact locations

(for the record dick is mostly trying to figure out if she knows selina) (he is asking the wrong person) (parker hasn’t ever talked to her but they’ve crossed paths) (only so many buildings containing incredibly expensive things in the world. yknow how it is)

and the more of the evening that passes the more bruce starts to develop a twitch, because these people are here for A Reason but no one can find anything on them, they’re not trying to get in the kitchens, they’re not armed, he sent tim off to hack into their comms two hours ago and he still hasn’t come back, dick is convinced the older woman is a prolific griffer but bruce is reasonably sure she’s related to him somehow, what are they trying to do why are they here bruce’s head hurts

eventually, eliot hits his subterfuge limit and just starts for the office, and bruce follows him, and they get in the aforementioned brawl in a relatively out-the-way hallway that slowly attracts parker, sophie, nate, and dick, and as that is playing out hardison finally says something he thinks isn’t incriminating but makes tim go “ohhh you’re after the medical fraud guy. shit, why didn’t you just say so? i’ll send you the files now”

meaning hardison finally gives his full attention back to the main comms channel and says “uh, nate? it’s cool, i sorted it, you can bounce”, only for nate to reply “eliot has bruce wayne in a chokehold” and then, as hardison splutters, “no, wait, bruce wayne has eliot pinned– no, eliot has– no, i think– wait, maybe–”

“you, uh. you can break it up” hardison says, desperately trying to find a security camera with a good angle, and tim pipes up “hey, can we set up your guy and bruce on some playdates?” as nate, caught between bemusement and concern, says “i think? this is fun for them?”

and then alfred appears to remind bruce he can’t mysteriously disappear when it’s his party (“no, i think i can” “i am not saying it would be implausible, master bruce, i am saying it would be impolite”), and sees the leverage crew out, and the leverage crew have the weirdest debrief of their lives and then get their actual con off w/o a hitch thanks in part to some extra bonus files tim sent, and a couple weeks later bruce sends them a fruit basket and a standing invitation to any and all events he hosts

@chimaerakitten you might also like this one

OH I HADNT SEEN THAT LAST BIT BEFORE

i can only think of one :(... @lexluthorethicalbillionaire what do you think

I pressed the nuance button. And I wish it said “I am bald” like they sometimes do because that would be PRO-LEX. Because i pushed that button because there is ONE ethical billionaire and it is ETHICaL Lex Luthor. I used to be a libertarian who believed in the free market and Billionaires but after taking too much Benadryl I received a vision that lead me to the truth which is.. Lex Luthor is the only ethical billionaire and DECRIPET DC covers this up with S*perman propaganda. So vote NUANCE for Lex Luthor.

A comic about Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and typos.

I think Tim often listens to stories about Dick and Jason's time as Robin and feels so much envy.

When he was Robin, there was no hiding under Batmans cloak or saying crappy puns or laughing with him. There was just work and being alone.

Tim spent most of his Robin career either holding Batman together or doing things alone.

And then Jason came back, and Batman spent more time trying to unmask him, more effort into defeating him, then he had ever shown Tim.

It was only through so much time that Batman finally started seeing Tim not as his sons replacement, but as his Robin.

But still, Tim had the shittiest Robin run because he never truly got to be Robin.

I bet there are people at The Daily Planet who look at Clark Kent and wonder how badly he must have been bullied as a child. Like the guy is huge, and smart, and pretty dang handsome. Yet he’s always shrinking in on himself, trying to look small and non-threatening. He calls himself “mild-mannered” which the whole floor has seen is just code for “I will make sassy jokes with my friends, but anytime anyone starts yelling at me I will just lie down and take it every time.” Everyone on his floor must think Smallville Middle School permanently destroyed his self-confidence. 

#he’s like a great dane that tries to hide under the couch every time the vaccum comes out (@captainkirkk)

Funniest possible stance for Brucie Wayne to publically take is a firmly-rooted belief that Batman doesn't exist.

"I've never once been rescued by this so-called hero and I've been kidnapped 14 times already this year."

"Why would the police summon him with a giant lantern? Wouldn't that make more sense for Mothman?"

"I know what you can do with Photoshop, these doctored pictures can't fool me! Tim's a whiz with photos, have you seen his latest exhibit..?"

"Vigilantism is illegal, you can't do that."

Literally him

bruce, enjoying annoying the fuck out of this reporter: “people cant do that! its illegal!”

flabbergasted reporter who may or may not be clark kent: “things being illegal doesnt stop crime from happening! you just said that you were kidnapped 14 times this year!! for christ’s sake bruce your parents were murdered!”

*gasps break out across the gala*

bruce, heartbroken expression on his face: “i am well aware of that fact”

reporter, stuttering out broken sentences: “oh my god i didnt— i wasnt— Mr. Wayne, im so-”

bruce, face shuttered, with a gleaming look in his eyes: “i think you should go”

——————

clark, after the gala has ended: “i cant believe you set me up!”

bruce, brucie mask melting off his face as he doubles over in laughter: “you shouldve seen the look on your face, it was hilarious”

I would've really liked to have seen Tim come out to Dick or Ives but tbh I think he told Steph and bruce and then just decided to let everyone else clock him

"bluh superman is boring bc he has basically no physical weaknesses he's completely unrelatable" YOU FOOLS YOU BASTARDS YOU IDIOTS his weaknesses is that he was raised to THINK and ACT and FEEL completely human!!!! The whole POINT is to explore what happens when you take a guy who mentally is a caring and kind and decent and conflicted and messy human person and contrast that with him having the all powerful abilities of a god it's about the CONFLICT it's about the TENSION it's about the DOUBLE LIFE it's about wondering if you can theoretically spend 24/7 saving people because you don't have to eat or sleep or breathe can you actually justify having a job or going to bed or falling in love or living a life!!! It's about being well known as being powerful so your public persona can never once slip never be angry never trip up or else you become a symbol of fear rather than hope!!! It's about having to also keep yourself in check every day and having to keep yourself of two minds and having to explain over and over and over again that you're not interested in dominance you're not interested in power you're interested in justice and mercy and help. It's about no matter what you are always subduing some aspect of yourself either your mind or your body depending on which role you have to play!!! And all of that is JUST on the introspective level!!! Superman is one of the most fascinating characters ever if you think he's boring imo it's bc you're being boring about it

seeing some people in the tags saying things like "ohhh I Get it now" or "well now I'm also a superman fan":

[Image is three panels of a flaming skull saying, "Yes. Yes. YESSSSS!!" End ID]

Superman is validation that sometimes the best thing that a person can do - one who can literally hold up the entire planet - is talk to a suicidal person, or visit kids in a hospital. That individuals and their little problems are just as real and important as societal suffering.

He's about work-life balance, and that fact that no matter how important your work is, you can't succeed without breaks to be a person. That you have to go visit your parents or other loved ones some time.

He's about how failure is baked into life. No one can solve all problems, no matter how powerful they are. And to keep doing good, to not burn out or break down, we have to accept that. And that, in turn, allows us to do amazing things.

He's about the importance of privacy, and how valuable it is to keep parts of ourselves away from the world. How nobody has the right to know you without your permission, but how intimacy DOES require knowledge.

It's about being good even towards monsters. Even when a single glance could burn them to a crisp, and it would be SO EASY and SO SATISFYING. Even when it would solve the problem. Even when you want to SO SO BADLY.

Superman is about how some solutions are easy, but goodness is hard. How some problems are bigger than others, but ALL problems are real and important. Superman is about how your health is as important as the world's.

WE DESPERATELY NEED THAT MESSAGE RIGHT NOW.

I have been thinking lately about a universe where Bruce Wayne killed the Joker.

I want to be clear here, since there are so many longstanding debates on this topic: I do not think Bruce Wayne should kill the Joker. I have just been wondering what would happen if the circumstances aligned in such a way that he did.

And to be clear on a related, yet slightly different topic: when I say I have been wondering about what if Bruce Wayne killed the Joker, I do not mean as the Batman. I mean Bruce "Brucie" Wayne.

Maybe it's kind of an accident? Like, he definitely did intend to hit the Joker, but he's Brucie right now, so he's trying not to look like he knows what he's doing while still doing enough damage to keep the Joker from killing someone, and meanwhile the Joker makes just the wrong move and -

And here we are. Brucie just killed the Joker.

Bruce's reaction here is one thing; he has his one rule for a reason, he's just broken it, he's determined to turn himself in -

His family's reaction is a whole different story. How does Cass feel about this?

How does Jason? Bruce has killed the Joker, just like he wanted, but it wasn't for him, not really, and -

And meanwhile, this happens in front of, say, a gala full of people, so now all of Gotham gets to react to it too.

Average Gothamite, seeing the words BRUCE WAYNE, JOKER, and KILLED in the same headline: OH, NO.

Average Gothamite, once they've processed the order those words are actually in: . . . I did not have that on this year's bingo card.

The city's most famous mass murderer has just been publicly killed by the city's biggest employer/philanthropist/source of tabloid harmless nonsense! Three days before Brucie was making tabloid headlines by tripping into a fountain and somehow losing his shirt in the process! Two weeks before, the newspaper was running a retrospective on the Wayne murders and what donation Brucie was making to help the families of victims this year! The article mentioned how one of his adopted sons had also tragically become a murder victim!

Now this has happened, and Bruce is having a breakdown over breaking his one rule, and the rest of Gotham just assumes that this is because poor Brucie thinks this somehow makes him like the man who killed his parents. They send a huge outpouring of support his way. This in no way helps Bruce's actual breakdown.

Ninety percent of Gotham is sure Brucie didn't actually mean to kill the Joker, and pretty much a hundred percent of them support him whether he meant to do it or not. No one wants to have anything to do with prosecuting this mess. Bruce is trying to make it as clear as possible that he will fully cooperate with the justice system and meanwhile an entire gala full of people is suddenly acting like they could in no way have possibly witnessed events that took place ten feet in front of their faces. Did Bruce kill the Joker? Is the officer sure? That doesn't seem like him. Maybe the Joker just tripped on his own. Marble floors, you know. Very slippery.

i mean, there is no way the Joker was not presenting a serious threat at the time, and Bruce very genuinely didn't mean to kill him, so even if it did go to trial no jury would convict.

the issue then would be getting Bruce to agree to be coherently defended in court, or to accept that he wasn't being tried.

you'd have this deranged situation where the justice system is like 'we decline to press charges' and the multimillionaire who very literally didn't commit murder, because it was an accident and justified, going into conniptions about how he needs to be convicted of murder, someone let him plead guilty already.

the public wouldn't even be wrong that this is Brucie having lingering issues from his parents' murder.

this is the funniest death the Joker could possibly get. he'd be delighted.

bring back the creatures

When Tim Drake was a child and trying to earn his parents love, he taught himself how to read/speak multiple dead languages. He thought maybe if he could prove to be useful his parents would bring him with them to dog sites.

They did not, but Tim had caught the language bug so he kept learning more languages both regular and dead.

It shows up every now and then. Some hint shows up somewhere and the bats are like “are there any professors in the city who might be able to decipher this,” and Tim’s like “no need, also this is literally just the societies version of loss.” He shrugs and doesn’t notice the way his family is staring at him because how the fuck does Timmy know this.

It comes out in more fun ways of course. Tim uses languages to avoid the swear Jar. This man goes into long winded rants in ancient Sumarian assuming no one can understand him. He’s been doing it for years.

Then Ra's Al Ghul kidnaps him and he break into a rant in an earlier dialect of Armaic and sends Ra's literally reeling like how do you know that??? It was clear that Tim wasn't a native speaker, but he was fluent, and Ra's hasn't heard those words being spoken for hundreds of years.

Tim refuses to elaborate on why Ra's suddenly decided to let him go, along with the new found respect the demon head suddenly has for him. The Batfamily still wonders to this day.

Ra’s in the background minding his own business

Red Robin: yelling inaccuracies about his sparing partners form and abilities in a lost Dialect of Armaic

Ra’s: gets whiplash from how quickly his head turns to look at Tim.

Concept: Jason sending Tim a different drug dealer’s name every month so that rich kid Tim Drake tries to make the dealer sell to him as a test if they’re truly sticking to Jason’s no selling to kids rule.

Jason has essentially killed two birds with one stone, 1. He got to identify and take out the fuckers that were still selling to kids and 2. He essentially made sure Tim could never buy anything from Gotham’s dealers. Call it his way of caring.

To anybody else, Tim just looked like another stupid rich kid who doesn’t know what they’re getting themselves into but the ruse is up when the news starts spreading that anyone who sells to Tim Drake specifically will get their ass busted by the Red Hood. So the next time Jason sees Damian he pitches the idea up to him and the few dealers that sell to Damian get an especially slow and painful treatment cause how dare they sell to what is very clearly a 14 year old baby??

The operation is kept strictly away from Bruce, of course, until one day some reporter breaks the story about billionaire Bruce Wayne’s kids caught trying to buy drugs and all HELL breaks loose. The end result was all of them being grounded for a month after a 5 hour long rant about responsibility and damaging their civilian reputations and the entire Wayne family being blacklisted from the drug market no matter how much cash they wave around.

I have been thinking lately about a universe where Bruce Wayne killed the Joker.

I want to be clear here, since there are so many longstanding debates on this topic: I do not think Bruce Wayne should kill the Joker. I have just been wondering what would happen if the circumstances aligned in such a way that he did.

And to be clear on a related, yet slightly different topic: when I say I have been wondering about what if Bruce Wayne killed the Joker, I do not mean as the Batman. I mean Bruce "Brucie" Wayne.

Maybe it's kind of an accident? Like, he definitely did intend to hit the Joker, but he's Brucie right now, so he's trying not to look like he knows what he's doing while still doing enough damage to keep the Joker from killing someone, and meanwhile the Joker makes just the wrong move and -

And here we are. Brucie just killed the Joker.

Bruce's reaction here is one thing; he has his one rule for a reason, he's just broken it, he's determined to turn himself in -

His family's reaction is a whole different story. How does Cass feel about this?

How does Jason? Bruce has killed the Joker, just like he wanted, but it wasn't for him, not really, and -

And meanwhile, this happens in front of, say, a gala full of people, so now all of Gotham gets to react to it too.

Average Gothamite, seeing the words BRUCE WAYNE, JOKER, and KILLED in the same headline: OH, NO.

Average Gothamite, once they've processed the order those words are actually in: . . . I did not have that on this year's bingo card.

The city's most famous mass murderer has just been publicly killed by the city's biggest employer/philanthropist/source of tabloid harmless nonsense! Three days before Brucie was making tabloid headlines by tripping into a fountain and somehow losing his shirt in the process! Two weeks before, the newspaper was running a retrospective on the Wayne murders and what donation Brucie was making to help the families of victims this year! The article mentioned how one of his adopted sons had also tragically become a murder victim!

Now this has happened, and Bruce is having a breakdown over breaking his one rule, and the rest of Gotham just assumes that this is because poor Brucie thinks this somehow makes him like the man who killed his parents. They send a huge outpouring of support his way. This in no way helps Bruce's actual breakdown.

Ninety percent of Gotham is sure Brucie didn't actually mean to kill the Joker, and pretty much a hundred percent of them support him whether he meant to do it or not. No one wants to have anything to do with prosecuting this mess. Bruce is trying to make it as clear as possible that he will fully cooperate with the justice system and meanwhile an entire gala full of people is suddenly acting like they could in no way have possibly witnessed events that took place ten feet in front of their faces. Did Bruce kill the Joker? Is the officer sure? That doesn't seem like him. Maybe the Joker just tripped on his own. Marble floors, you know. Very slippery.

i mean, there is no way the Joker was not presenting a serious threat at the time, and Bruce very genuinely didn't mean to kill him, so even if it did go to trial no jury would convict.

the issue then would be getting Bruce to agree to be coherently defended in court, or to accept that he wasn't being tried.

you'd have this deranged situation where the justice system is like 'we decline to press charges' and the multimillionaire who very literally didn't commit murder, because it was an accident and justified, going into conniptions about how he needs to be convicted of murder, someone let him plead guilty already.

the public wouldn't even be wrong that this is Brucie having lingering issues from his parents' murder.

this is the funniest death the Joker could possibly get. he'd be delighted.

The only thing you need to know about Tim becoming Robin is that he's the protagonist of a horse girl movie and Batman is the horse.

Tim with Bruce

Dick with Bruce

Jason with Bruce Part 1

Jason with Bruce Part 2

Jason with Bruce Part 3

Steph with Bruce

Damian with Bruce

Cass with Bruce

Duke with Bruce

Barbara with Bruce

💯 No notes.

Ahahahha thanks @dg-outlaw

I used the max amount of images in that post but here’s some more

Alfred and Bruce

Superman and Bruce

Commissioner Gordon and Bruce

Bruce and Catwoman

Bruce and Joker

Any piece of media that doesn’t give Batman a Robin has misunderstood the character to a shocking degree. And not because Robin keeps Batman from going too dark or anything like that, but because Batman is fundamentally about parenthood. It started with an orphan, with the loss of parents. It’s always always always been about that.

I think at some level, Batman is trying to protect Gotham City in the same way a parent protects their child, and Robin is the physical embodiment of that. Batman is the kind of parent that says I will defend you, I will save you from danger, I will hurt whatever hurts you. Batman isn’t about a fear of bats. Batman is about the loss of parents. Bruce lost his parents to a violent criminal, so he will protect his city from criminals of the same nature, and when he sees a little boy with no one, he will step into the gap because he can’t bear not to. He knows that pain, and he will be damned if he lets this child feel it too.

Batman is a guardian and a father and a scared little boy all wrapped up in a black cape and a growl, and by his side there is another scared little boy who isn’t so scared with the Bat next to him, and together they’re going to make all of Gotham a little less scared too. That’s the core of Batman- he was an orphan once, and he will not let his city be left alone in the dark. And sometimes that’s planting a fist in the face of a mugger, and sometimes it’s holding the hand of a little boy in traffic light colors, but either way it’s Batman saying don’t be scared, I will protect you, I’m here.

Batman is a father. And I wish more media understood that.