Grey--scales - Nikki

– Emily Dickinson, “One need not be a chamber to be Haunted”  

can someone draw this with Bruce and Damian instead?

“in this short life that only lasts ah hour how much-how little-is within our power.”

— Emily Dickinson, Envelope Poems.

How do you see Stephanie Brown, and what do you think that others get wrong?

I see Stephanie Brown as someone who has always, always refused to break.

I think that’s the first thing that people always lose sight of with her. In the Nu52, Steph’s trauma and history and stubbornness ended up being erased in favor of her being a fish-out-of-water newcomer to the scene.

Steph has not had an easy time of things. She is an abuse survivor, who had to deal with her mother’s struggles with opioid addiction. Friends and family of her parents couldn’t be trusted, and so she grew up, alone, longing for someone to come along, to understand, to help. She built up an idea of Batman as that perfect adult she never had, of the person who actually could help her, could understand her, and would.

But no one came. No one helped. Therapy and jail and stints on the Suicide Squad only made her father more dangerous, rather than helping him, and she was becoming more and more aware of the full extent of his abuse towards her mother.

So she saves herself.

First, and foremost, Steph saves herself.

Steph is kind, and happy, but what I think people don’t understand is that her kind of joy is a choice. It’s a fight, every day, and she is fighting tooth and nail for it, every day. It’s not always easy, she doesn’t always succeed. But she is, at the heart of herself, railing against the cycles and systems of abuse that has defined her life, has defined the lives of her friends and the people she is trying to help.

Her life is, fundamentally, an attempt to break that cycle, and to help others break it to. She believes in second-chances, because you need them, because people make mistakes, and stumble, but if you are going to heal, if you are going to improve, you need those chances. To break a vicious cycle, you need an exit, and she is fighting hard for those exits.

And I think people struggle to understand that, to understand that her happiness, her kindness, are a choice made in spite of the cruelty of Gotham and the world. It’s not that it doesn’t affect her; it shapes her entire life, and she burns with that injustice, burns with the fact that every system failed her, failed her mother, failed Cass.

And that’s why she stays, that’s why she keeps fighting, because if Stephanie Brown is ever going to be more than the daughter of a supervillain, the girl who looks just like Arthur Brown, the teenaged mom, the girl who was Robin for seventy-one days… she has to.

And she is. She’s Batgirl. She’s Robin. She’s Spoiler.

And that’s something worth smiling about.

god it took me AGES but it’s finally done. Happy Batman Day!

 [SOURCE]

the only thing you need to know about the batman movie is that this bruce is dumb enough, emo enough, and guilty enough to adopt an acrobatic orphan and think it’s absolutely the right decision

starfire and her boys.

original artist n/a

I've always wondered how Jason would be publicly integrated back into the family without it seeming suspicious as fuck (because let's be real, legally reviving your son who turns out to not actually be dead is gonna be real hard to explain to the public)

So instead of going through all the hassle of paperwork and a cover story, what if Jason just sorta...popped back into the family without any explanation whatsoever?

But instead of explaining his reappearance, Jason just doesn't fucking say anything and acts like the once dead Wayne kid suddenly being alive isn't the biggest fucking deal in Gotham right now

and when someone tries to approach him he just looks at them wide-eyed and says in his most startled voice "...you can SEE me?"

and then the second the person takes their eyes off him he just ✨disappears✨ (because bat powers obviously) and it freaks everyone the fuck out

and when the other batkids get interviewed they just put up their best act of pretending they have no idea what anyone's talking about

Reporter: Mr. Drake, what do you have to say about the impossible return of your late brother?"

Tim: Who?

Reporter: ...

their performances range from straight up ignorance to dramatically bursting into tears whenever someone brings up the topic

Reporter: Do you have anything to say about the recent events surrounding Jason Todd?"

[Cue Dick letting out the most obnoxious wail possible and crying all over the reporter]

Reporter: Oh-I didn't mean to upse-

Dick: I just wish I was there for him more when he was alive, yknow?

Reporter: Ah, well-

Dick: And sometimes I wonder what he would've been like now...All grown up and going to college...[more fucking sobbing]

Reporter whispering under their breath: What the fuck is going on

everyone stopped asking Dick after that.

these shenanigans get so ridiculous to the point where Jason's even started standing RIGHT NEXT to his siblings whenever they're in public and they just pretend like he isn't even fucking there

it's come to the point where ghost!Jason (?) even has his own wiki page where people just talk about his weird ass appearances and the possibilities of him being a cryptid

and oh yeah this all happens during the span of one week while Bruce is (conveniently) off world

when he comes back he's just met with half of Gotham in hysterics over his dead son and theorizing if the Waynes are being haunted and he has absolutely zero clue about what the fuck is going on

he first finds out from an interviewer asking him how he feels about his ghost son and how any of this is even possible

but I imagine that Bruce's brain kinda short circuits and the only thing he's processing right now is that Jason is back in the family and he just starts tearing up like, "My son is back in the family? He loves me? 🥺"

and everyone in Gotham is like Mr. Wayne did you miss the fucking part where your DEAD son is just ALIVE again and just chilling around the city??

anyways you CANNOT tell me Jason wouldn't use this opportunity to pull the biggest prank in Gotham history like that boy LIVES for drama