Wes Forgets, Sometimes, About His Curse. He Forgets At The Worst Moments.

I’ve realized that the main reason I don’t give a fuck about Red Hood’s actual canon crimes is not that I think they’re justified, or reasonable, or even just funny. He has been shown doing very fucked up shit that at times has very little, if anything, to do with any reasonable moral code. But the reason I don’t care is that I’ve steadily become very critical of villain framing. It’s so very common to have a villain say something very reasonable like “poor people shouldn’t die” and then complement it with “and I will kill babies about it.” If the first statement is reasonable, and the narrative does not provide a reason that justifies the balls-to-the-wall batshit “solution” the character came up with, then I assume the author is either deliberately or subconsciously villainizing a specific group of people for no reason, and I don’t vibe with that. At that time I no longer care about what the author/narrative actually has to say and my reaction becomes “the narrator is actually a biased witness and anything they say about this person’s actions should be taken as exaggeration”. Oh, so Jason is an indiscriminate killer who thinks every petty criminal deserves to die? Wrong. They’re exaggerating and taking the facts out of context. So he killed a hundred people in prison with barely any provocation? It probably wasn’t that many and the ones he did were trying to kill him to begin with, with no intervention from the guards, so it was self defense. He attempted to kill a child? Wrong, that was a two-sided fight between two teenagers, he just won so the other one’s bitter. Like, I don’t care how much made up context I need to stuff in there to make it make sense, I will do it because the narrative decided to frame the homeless kid from a poor neighborhood as the villain against the nice and kindhearted humanitarian billionaire so its logic is fucked from the get-go

The Infinite Realms, or the In-Between, is a bit of an odd place in terms of afterlives. Specifically that it's the space between the world of the Living and any of the worlds of the Dead, and as such it's denizens belong to neither.

They have their own culture, their own magic, their own rules, and their own language.

But that's fine.

For you see, Constantine has learned Ghostspeak. This means he can communicate with Ghosts from the Infinite Realms.

He reassures Zatanna and Captain Marvel as such.

Then he turns to speak with Phantom, protector Ghost of Amity Park, and ask him for his help in fighting off the latest bad guy.

Except when he starts talking, the Ghost turns a deep green and sinks into the ground.

Constantine turns to look at his companions, but Captain Marvel has his hands over his ears and is a bright, bright red.

....

What. What just went wrong?

Back at the Girl's Night Subplot

Tim: Ok Oracle just called and said that we need Bruce Wayne to have some plausible deniablilty about some currently illegal activities and Batman needs to either be chill about two new metas or be kept far away from whatever the girls are doing.

Jason: So he needs to be kept-

Tim:-away from the case. At least for now. If O's plan is what I think it is, it'll be beneficial to have Batman involved in the final stages.

Jason: How are we going to keep the old man from trying to figure out what his favorites are up to?

Tim: How do you feel about being a hostage?

Jason: How do you feel having both eyebrows?

Tim: It was just a question. Calm down, asshole.

Jason: Yeah, yeah. What about you, me, and the baby bat started just hanging out? That'll grab his attention

Tim: Elegant in its simplicity, but it might be too obvious a plot. Barbara said she knows I won't fail her, so it's got to be good. What if we both decided to be villains and started a terf war?

Jason: It has promise, but risks too much collateral damage this early on.

Tim: Right. We don't know how long we'll need to keep B distracted

Jason: Let's put that before calling Talia, but after a pregnancy scare

Tim:.....I need to call someone

Jason: Timmy, if you got someone pregnant, I will end you!

Tim: Shut up! I'm on the phone. Conner, do you remember Plan "abo"?

Conner: Is it time? Please say it's time. Because I'm at a very petty time in my life and I will ruin all of Krypton's reputation, just say the word.

Tim: Some details need to be ironed out, but yes, it's time.

The street kids of Gotham were acting off. Which wasn't saying much considering they were always acting suspicious but for the last few weeks the kids had been acting different somehow. They were a little too organized. Jason finally decided to look into it and found that the street kids really had organized under one leader. Which was concerning to say the least. Jason figured their leader was some asshole who was about to forfeit his rights to knee caps but instead he found it was some spooky teen from out of town. It was still suspicious but he figured as long as the kid wasn't causing any trouble he'd leave things be. For now.

What if the Lazarus pits had blob ghosts and they merged together to became a concept ghost?

Now for the memes!

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Al Ghul approaches the pits

L: uh-uh, what's he doing?

Al Ghul: *dives into the pits*

L: UGH! *Pukes out a blob ghost that looked around before immediately rejoining Lazarus* NO! GET HIM OUT OF HERE!!! OUT!!!

Al Ghul: *gets yeeted* ?!

------

Would Lazarus like Jason and the others? 🤔 strangely enough, I'd say yes.

L: At least you guys didn't try to just constantly USE ME like my last master did! *dramatic sobs*

Batman: *desperately trying not to adopt this unknown entity* how OLD are you?

L: *suddenly fine* oh, me? I just formed yesterday! Let me tell ya, it was QUITE a surprise to suddenly be able to move and see! It's been a true experience so far, I can see why you guys like doing this so much!

Batman: *physically restraining himself* Hn.

------

Jason: so what exactly are you?

L: oh, me? Well I don't know TOO much but from what my instincts are telling me, is that I'm a type of ghost!

Dick: GHOST????

L: yes! Specially a Concept ghost! Like how there's a concept of time and space, I'm a concept of the pits.....I guess.

Jason: you guess???

L: only a few days old, remember? I don't even have a guardian ghost yet!

Batman: *immediately at attention* are you supposed to have one?

L: yep! Every baby ghost needs a guardian! It's not like we can know everything the moment we're born. Hell, I don't even know where the other ghosts are, all there is here are shades....and remnants.

Tim: I have so many questions.

L: and I have so little answers! It seems we're stuck in the same boat Tim! (Oh btw Tim, your clones wanted me to say Hi)

The fam: WAIT WHAT?!

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Lazarus and the shades getting along as Lazarus greets them like one would do to their pets.

L: why hello! Yes, hello! Look at you, look at you *coos*

-------

Hmmm 🤔 Lazarus would need a guardian that can make portals in order to show them how and to make sure they get fresh ectoplasm when need. And the only ghosts I can think of is Wulf and Clockwork.

But there's also Cujo.

Lazarus meeting the only other ghost he's seen and it's this small dog.

L:

Cujo:

L: are you my dad??

Cujo: *sweating because oh no this child has no parents, but how the bark does he raise a baby ghost?*

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Tho Wulf parenting Lazarus would also be cute.

Walker finds Wulf and immediately spots the kid.

Walker also knows that bonds between a baby ghost and it's parent are near impossible to break. (Not to mention against the rules.)

So then it'd be Walker and Wulf raising this baby ghost together lmao!

The sound of John Constantine’s incredulous voice entered the meeting room before his body did. “Fight an Infinite Realms ghost? Are you insane?! Do you want to get us killed?”

Zatanna spun and almost snarled at him. “What would you have us do then, Constantine? Maybe you’re okay with sacrificing people sometimes, be we’re the heroes. We can’t just let it keep wreaking havoc. There’s no reported deaths yet, but we don’t know how long that’ll last.”

He leaned against the wall nonchalantly and lit a cigarette. “Well, what’s it yelling about?”

“What?”

He took a long drag before continuing. “Realms ghosts– they’re basically immune to our magic, but they’re easy marks if you know how to deal with ‘em. They all have some sort of Obsession. Just work with that and they’re remarkably simple to manipulate.” His voice turned to a grumble, “Doesn’t mean they can’t be a huge pain in the fucking ass sometimes though.”

Tapping some ash off his cigarette, he looked straight back into the room again. “So… what’re they yelling about?”

Early Adventure Time episodes: Ice King "kidnaps" Wire Princess, a vaguely humanoid heap of scrap with a smiley face painted on its "head" which he obviously made. Finn wants to stop him on the principle of kidnapping being bad, while Jake argues that since his "victim" is an inanimate piece of junk, no one's getting hurt and it might even quell his kidnapping thirst. After a series of shenanigans, Ice King attacks Jake, at which point Wire Princess speaks, revealing that not only was she alive, but consenting to the kidnapping as well, because of Ice King's fluffy beard. But now that she has seen him attack Jake, another fluffy thing, her heart is wavering and she must journey alone to find the true meaning of fluff. The end gag is Ice King screaming "She was alive?"

Middle Adventure Time episode: Raggedy Princess' kingdom is being attacked, and the assailant is revealed to be none other than Wire Princess, whose quest for fluff has turned destructive. PB appears excessively distraught by this, and it's revealed that she created Wire and Raggedy Princess (then known as cloth princess) in a recreation of the monkey experiment to best gauge her approach to ruling, in the early days of the Candy Kingdom. However, when the Wire Princess AI realized the candy people were more driven to Cloth Princess' caring nature, it logically concluded the only biological need of candy people is "fluff", and so tried her best to imitate Cloth's behavior, while Cloth Princess' deeply ingrained love for her citizens caused her to attempt to physically care for them. Declaring the experiment a failure, PB mind-wiped them both, gave Cloth Princess a new kingdom and name, and put WP in sleep mode, as well as left her in Ice King's junk pile. Jake, who has been listening, says "PB, that's messed up, man". Although they deliberate whether to reboot her again, she ends up being smashed by a gumball guardian or something. While everyone staress in shock, Raggedy Princess says "That's messed up, man. Also I didn't have time to say this earlier but I'm fine with either Raggedy Princess or Cloth Princess. So, um, yeah. Anyway, I'm going to call the cleanup crew"

Late Adventure Time episode: A strange techno-magical maze appears out of the blue in the Ice Kingdom. Finn and Jake explore it and find imagery of both softness and some sort of pre-apocalypse university, ultimately discovering it was created by Magic Woman/Betty mind-melding with Wire Princes, who was trying to reverse engineer an AI with love magic infused through Simon or whatever. She inadvertently mind-melded then, accidentally creating the semi-physical maze with her magic powers, and in turn realized that WP was, in fact, not only functional and aware this whole time, but she also had a slowed down perception of time. Finn and Jake sever the link after fighting some techno-nightmares. Magic Woman, despite only having been mind-melded for a day, has experienced a whole year, and appears distraught. But this is only momentary, as she declares that her accelerated madness means that her magic will grow exponentially stronger, and runs off appearing to have a plan. Finn and Jake are worried about Wire Princess going haywire (the pun is pointed out), but she clarifies (her voicebox is working now, but not much else) that actually, since she didn't have or understand emotions for most of her aware existence, she was just fine then. She then goes on a beautiful monologue about how, since she's now bonded to one, she finally, truly understands emotional beings and their complex needs. She renames herself "wire knight", and downloads her consciousnesses onto Finn's arm. A later episode has BMO and Wire Knight debating the trolley problem

Something inspired by this post and this song.

Danny blinked as everything around him seemed to pause. Mist escaping past his lips and he looked at the still branch outside of the window.

Hands rested over his shoulders. "My dearest child." Clockwork's spoke from behind him, and Danny stilled. "Won't you join? We can get you out this little predicament binding you by human law."

"No." Danny huffed, resolutely staring out of the window. "I don't want to. You made me try so hard to avoid my bad future, and now you just want me to do something like that?"

"My dear boy," Clockwork flew in front of him, cupping Danny's face in gentle hands. "Your alternate future destroyed this world and as such, the Observants wanted you dead. It would have been unfair for you to be killed for a mere possible future."

Danny scoffed. "You only interfered because you saw a future with me with at your side." Danny scowled, wanting to pull back from Clockwork's hands but found that he couldn't. He scowled a bit more at his body's betrayal, sinking into the touch instead of pulling away.

"I will not lie to you, I had indeed interfered because of such." Clockwork slowly rubbed comforting circles on the boy's cheeks. "But also because you are my child, even if you were then, you would have been eventually. It is a parent's duty to protect their child, is it not?"

Danny wanted to refute that. But the memories of his parent's death at the hands of the GIW for him caused the words to be stuck in his throat. The images of both their and his sister and friend's bodies caused his vision to blur.

He choked down the tears.

"My poor child," Clockwork rested his forehead against Danny's own, a comforting gesture. "To have faced such cruelty at human hands, and for your own human donor to deny you your grief." Clockwork smiled. "Just let us help you, come to our side and we shall make it all go away."

Danny stayed silent for a moment, a small part of himself feeling guilty over wanting Clockwork's touch but a larger part wanting it anyway. "No." Danny breathed out harshly. "They don't deserve to die just because of that."

They don't.

If he says it enough, it'll stay true.

No matter what happens.

Clockwork leaned back, hands falling from his face and Danny had to force himself not to follow the touch as Clockwork circled behind him.

"I am willing to ask as many times as it takes, for you will join us eventually." Danny hated the certainty in the ghost's tone, but couldn't help but push his head into the hand that patted his head. "A piece of advice, however. War is not as patient as I am."

And with those parting words, Clockwork disappeared. Time resuming at once with Danny still sat on his bed. He flopped onto his back, head hitting the pillows as he turned on his side. He stared at his hands silently, before turning one palm up as ice danced up from his palm, slowly taking shape into lifelike versions of his family.

Alive and happy.

A small smile grew on his face he watched. Fighting against living food that Danny had once disliked.

What he wouldn't give to have it all back.

A knock broke him from his starring, and the ice collapsed in his hand.

"Master Danny?" Alfred's voice came from the other side of the door, causing Danny to frown. "Would you be joining us for lunch?"

Danny wanted to say no. He didn't want to interact with anyone in this stupid family.

Danny hated how he couldn't say no without one of them making it into some kind of problem.

So what if he hasn't eaten in a few days? He would live.

Danny sighed, standing up from his bed and silently staring at the door before he got up. He stared at the bracelet on his wrist for a moment as he grabbed onto the doorknob, the one that limited his power extremely, and opened the door.

He stared up at the pleasantly surprised expression on the butler's face, before looking away as he started to lead him towards the kitchen.

The one where Bruce is the asshole (again)

So! We have a typical story where the JLA finds out about the Situation in Amity.

Whichever way they find out doesn't matter, but either way they end up sending Batman to do a threat analysis and review of whether this requires their attention.

And while there, he runs into a Kid who obviously needs to be saved from his Abusive Home. Look at him, he's far too thin, his grades are horrible, he has many unexcused absences, and he has bruises hidden under his clothes.

Even after figuring out that Danny is Phantom the local Hero, he thinks Danny needs to be saved from his Parents.

I mean, it's plain to see! They Hates Ghosts with a Passion, negelct their son very often, shoot at him nearly every day, and are probably the ones who killed him in the first place!

So, with no input from Danny himself, Bruce calls CPS on the Fentons and uses his Wealth to expedite the process and avoid the actual Investigation. (I mean, why would you even need one? It's so obviously a bad home!)

The Fenton's are arrested, and Bruce reveals that Danny is Phantom to convince the Courts that they are horrible people for shooting at their own son, and that they should be locked up (ignoring the horrified looks on their faces, probably cause they were living with a Ghost for so long, thats probably why).

He immediately offers to adopt Danny, even when Danny vehemently refuses his offer. He knows that Danny will come around to it, he's doing this for his own good. He still thinks his Parents were good people, and not thr Villains they really were.

Meanwhile Danny's life has been completely uprooted thanks to the self-righteous machinations of an Adoption Crazed Fruitloop! And not even the usual one!

Sure his parents were often busy with their work, but they Always set aside time to hang out with their kids and make sure they were okay. They never abused him, the neglect was only for like a month or two when the portal before they got their act together and apologized for it, and (most importantly) THEY DIDN'T KNOW he was a Halfa when they shot at him! They only found out when the ASSHOLE revealed his Identity in Court!

And Danny is Extra enraged by that part. The Adoption Crazed Fruitloop had revealed his secret identity for the ENTIRE WORLD TO HEAR!

He would never be able to live a normal life anymore, even if he managed to get away from the Moron who caused all this!

Bruce Wayne was a Villain in his eyes.

He ripped him from his home and from his family (basically kidnapped), revealed his identity to the world so he was forced to stay with him for fear of the GIW, and spun the whole story so that it looked like he was the Good Guy in this!?

It was official. Danny Hates Bruce Wayne, possibly more than anyone else in the World.

And that's a High Bar.

DCxDP fic: Copyright

The first time it happened, the Waynes were walking around a street market, glancing at the art, when a woman wearing a Red Hood jacket and drinking out of a Red Robin coffee traveling mug struts by.

The heroes stop to stare, more in shock, to see how well the two items are done, which grabs her attention.

She grins at them, waving her cup. "You guys like the bats? You should check out both nineteen. He sells all official stuff."

"Official?" Dick repeats.

"Yup. He has it all trademarked." She says, pulling out a business card. She hands it to Dick with a smile before bidding everyone goodbye. Babs reaches up, snatching the card from Dick's slack hold, pulling out her phone to research the name.

Babs hisses through her teeth when she finds out that, yes, whoever the artist is, they did, in fact, trademark their designs. But not only did they cover their art, but they also put a copyright over the idea of all the Gotham heroes.

"He copyrighted Batman!?" Tim demands, reading over the baby's shoulder. "The symbol, the technology, the fighting moves- his shadow!? How!?"

"No one else did," Bruce answers with an amused smile. "He probably realized this and decided to slap one on while he had the chance."

"He can't do that!" Tim shouts. "Batman should sue him."

"Kinda hard to take someone to court regarding vigilantes." Dick shrugs his shoulders. "The Bats are illegal themselves, and they didn't copyright before this guy did."

"He owns Robin!" Jason announces with a laugh.

"That son of a-!!" Dick shouts, twisting around and stomping down the booths. People who recognize them jump out of the way for the raging celebrity. The rest of the Waynes were right behind him, a few slightly surprised by the pure anger on the eldest face.

Not Bruce or Jason. They see and personally know Dick's rage.

"How dare he try to claim Robin!" The eldest hisses, rounding the last row and stumbling to a halt. The rest are unprepared for his sudden stop, so they stumble into his back.

Grunts of pain and slight soft swears are heard as the group tumbles over onto the ground. Dick is unfortunate enough to end up on the bottom, feeling the total weight of his family. He's pretty sure Bruce's elbow was digging into his lower back, and Tim's head had slammed on the back of his neck.

Maybe Alfred was right about them going on a stricter diet. Ouch.

"Get up this instant. We are ashamed of the family name." Damian hisses from where he is standing above them. Of course, Cass is next to him with a cheerful smile.

Both of them had danced out of the collision in a way that appeared accidental to the untrained eye. Bruce likely let himself fall because he enjoyed causing scenes as Brucie Wayne, no matter how much he denied it.

"Dick." Jason groans, taking the hand Cass held out for him with grace. "Why did you stop?"

"Look at both nineteen." Dick hisses feeling Tim delibertly dig his elbow into his back. His brother offers him a sweet, innocent smile that does not hide the anger in his eyes. Sometimes Dick wonders if anyone can spot the pettiness in Tim or if his madness hides it.

"Oh," Steph whistles when she hopes off of Bruce to stare at the booth owner. "Yeah, I get it. He's hot"

"No!"Dick shouts, rising up from the ground. There is horror in his voice that makes the Bats all tense. "No, he is not hot. That's disgusting Steph. Look at him. Tell me who's face that is."

It's Bruce who spots it first. "I have more chidlren?"

Damian gasps. "Father, you have more blood, children!? How did you recognize him, Richard?"

"He looks exactly like Bruce at that age." Dick hisses, leaning closer. "The Titians and I met Bruce when he was sixteen during a mishap with a time wizard. I may have pretended to be a butler sent to Wayne Manor for training to get access to the cave. The cave was the location that we had to use to go home."

"That was you?" Bruce demands. "I thought that was an idiot who was in love with Alfred."

"Ew, why?"

"You kept complimenting his cooking, doing chores for him, and trying to take him out for a fun night in town!"

"Well, excuse me for wanting Alfred to have a week's vacation from the broodiest and most troublesome teen!" Dick shouts, throwing his arms in the air. "You were literally hissing at him whenever he told you to bathe!"

"I didn't like water back then!"

"Hey guys?" Jason cuts in. "Tim left."

Both men swing to stare at the second eldest with twin looks of confusion. "What?"

"Tim. He's over there. Yelling at kid-Bruce." Jason points to where a crowd is slowly building around them. Tim is in a screaming match with the owner. There is a lot of hand-waving, faces turning red in anger, finally ending with the owner throwing himself over the Red Robin merchandise with a protective little snarl.

Tim reels back and punches him in the face.

"Oh shit," Steph sighs, running towards the both as the owner is quick to tackle Tim. The Waynes find it odd that they must show off their bat training to break the two apart.

And that's how the Waynes get on the front cover of almost all media coverage that tells the story of Danny Fenton (Wayne). Bruce's second secret love child with a married woman (Jack and Maddie had briefly opened up about their marriage back then, so neither was mad) and who had met his biological father after a public fight with his adoptive brother.

Danny would like to go on record as saying that he was unaware of why Tim cared so much that he saw a fantastic business opportunity and took it. It's not like Batman could challenge his copyrights, and if the crimefighter came for his kneecaps over it, he would find himself against the Ghost King.

True the Ghost King in name only, but the Bat didn't know that.

Danny will be honest if asked how he felt about finding out Bruce Wayne is his father. He already knew. When he was around twelve, his parents sat him down and told him. It was how his dad explained where babies came from, the genuine Welcome To Puberty! Talk and what open marriages meant—which was as horrific as it sounds—and they never bothered with it again.

Because Jack Fenton had been the one to raise Danny, he had been the one who held him after his mom gave birth and had been the one who loved him with all his heart despite not being blood-related.

He had a bigger reaction to having to fist-fight Tim Drake over the fact he made Red Robin the official LGBT+ member of the Bat family because he is bi, no matter how much Tim insists Red Robin was straight.

It sounds to him like Tim is deep in the closet and in denial. Bisexual Red Robin forever!