Junkdrawerfan-2 - @JunkDrawerFan’s Backup

One day I’ll sell my crafts. But for now I’m glad I finished these!

I know it’s for the angst and maybe it’s a thing in canon cause comic books. But if the batfamily are just human — Just straight 100% human — then they cannot hide their injuries.

A sprained ankle, once sprained, is easier to sprain. A bruised rib can turn into a fractured rib. A cut can get infected. A bruise can be hiding internal bleeding. All injuries, if ignored, can get worse.

First off. Just to clarify. The reality of the situation is that our very fun fleshy human characters just cannot be getting as hurt as frequently as they do in fics. In the comics, Bruce getting bruised ribs is a sign he is not taking care of himself and is being reckless and dangerous after Jason’s death. This might have changed in modern comics (that’s dumb. Batman doesn’t get hurt because he’s skilled and prepared. If they’ve changed that for shock or vibes, it’s stupid.) but it just can’t be true. The human body doesn’t heal that fast. There is no “magnify the sun to heal faster” tech for the batfamily. It’s one thing if Bruce used magic so they could insta-heal. But he doesn’t like magic either!

Bruised ribs and sprained ankles which seem “not that bad” in a lot of fics can keep a professional athlete from practice for weeks if not months. Let’s not even get into how it can affect a professional during the actual game/race/event.

The batfamily — who must be operating at peak physical fitness and pushing their bodies to the physical limit on top of the rigorous training/working out they do to enhance their skills — must 1) treat their bodies intelligently, 2) have some kind of rest day system so their bodies don’t shut down from the stress and 3) treat every injury seriously and timely to avoid exasperation and unnecessary healing time.

I get its comic books. I get Damian has such perfect awareness of his body he can shift his organs (ew.) to avoid being fatally stabbed. He’s still just a guy! They’re all just guys in super cool futuristic body armor and some neat gadgets.

(Side note: That body armor has gotta have some kind of kinetic dispersion system like Black Panther’s to keep the bruises minimal. Which means that body armor has to be good at stopping knives and guns from piercing the human flesh underneath. Which means that body armor cannot have any obvious flaws or weaknesses like only the cape is bulletproof and short shorts revealing the femeral artery!

(What I mean is maybe Dick and Jason had some like flesh colored armor leggings. Please let me live in delusion!)

Plus there has to be under layers. The color pattern top might be spandex or some kind of colored Kevlar-like fabric, but there must be special under garments, jock straps, compression shorts, ankle and wrist wraps. Something! Just Kevlar against bare skin would be impossible. Think of the rash! The sweat!There must be some kind of sweat-slicking layer or something that keeps you cool while you exert yourself running around a massive city like Gotham*. Otherwise they’d pass out from overheating!)

And since they’re just guys, when they get injured it is a big deal! They cannot hide their injuries, especially if they’re working with others. Injuries mean physical limitations which means your teammates have to pick up the slack. If your teammates don’t know they have to pick up the slack, not only are you endangering yourself but you are endangering your teammates.

And no matter how frustratingly emotionally constipated the bats are, no way are they choosing to risk their friends and family welfare for the sake of pride.

Think about it:

If you have mobility issues then you’re on sidewalk duty? Youre walking or motorcycle. Either way you’re off rooftops until you can safely grapple without pulling some stitches on your side or exasperating the ache in your upper back.

If you hide it and then you lose your gripe on your grapple because you have a full body flinch from pulling something and your teammates have to catch you or you die. Well that’s stupid. That’s a stupid way to die. No ego is worth that stupid death.

If you’re not sleeping which means your reaction time is sloppy** then you’re just not patrolling. There is plenty of work that doesn’t require the bats to be fighting around the city. The detective work can be done at a desk looking through camera footage, tracking down informants or victims or witnesses, or just mining the web for info. Plus paperwork, gadget maintenance, and the other fussy work that happens when you don’t have a company dedicated to maintaining your status of superhero like Ironman does.

All I’m saying is I know the cool part is the swinging and the patrolling and the fighting. Having an injury — a serious one with bone and blood — sounds cool and adds tension. Hell hiding an injury sounds like something they would do because they’re emotionally stunted idiots who don’t want to be a burden on their loved ones, right?

But they’re Bats! They’re effective, efficient, smart. They are human with human limits that can keep up with Supers and Flashes and Themyscirans. But to do that, they have to be managing their human limits intelligently.

TLDR: The BatFam cannot be getting injured that frequently or hiding injuries from teammates — the family or otherwise — without becoming massive liabilities in the field which would make their jobs nearly impossible to complete at the level of excellence they must do to keep up with the rest of the superhero community.

——

* By the way, Gotham is a city with a population of 10 million. For reference, NYC has 8 million people. Gotham also has enough land to have entire city blocks permanently unoccupied. Think about that! If NYC had a plot of land unoccupied, it would be built up into housing and business space immediately because space is a hot commodity in a city of 8M! How much fucking space does Gotham have!!!

** Yes you can survive without any sleep up to 30 days but that’s because by day 30 your organs shut down. Lack of sleep starts costing you as soon as 36 hours without sleep. They have to be sleeping a full 8-10 hours (or more because again they’re moving so much!) at some point to keep up. If they have insomnia then maybe they take something to go to sleep like a special bat-ambien.

I had a fun idea for a canon compliant Bruce & Tim ABO fic where Tim is presenting as an omega and he calls Bruce to take him back to the manor during the time Jack made him give up Robin.

Like Jack and Dana are in the other room but Tim wants to be with his pack alpha and that hasn’t been Jack in a long time.

And it’s painful because Jack isn’t the worst dad in the world. He’s been really trying lately, even before he found out about Robin, he’s been giving a real effort. But it doesn’t make up for all the years he was shitty and absent. He’s still got a temper and a tendency to threaten Tim with boarding school. And Bruce is who Tim feels safest with. He’s Batman but he’s also the guy who held him when his mom died and takes care of him after hard patrols. Who asks about his schoolwork and pets his hair when he’s tired during a stake out.

So he’s present as an omega and calls Bruce to take him home and Bruce shows up bc he’ll always do his best to never let one of his kids down again. And Bruce has already called Dick over (omega or beta I’m not sure) and Alfred is preparing the pack nest for Tim’s presentation. And he knocks on the door.

And Jack opens the door with a gun, demanding to know why Bruce is here while his son is in heat.

And Bruce has to tell this man who hates him, who feels emasculated by his very presence, that his presenting omega son didn’t feel safe enough in Jack’s home and called Bruce. And it’s made worse because Tim has his bags packed and he’s standing behind the two of them, swaying from the pain, and waiting for Jack to step aside so he can go be with his dad.

And Jack wants to rant and rave and force Tim back into his pack nest and cover his son in his scent and just get him to stay and be safe in his arms. But Tim is standing there waiting to leave and it is a reckoning. That even if Tim has agreed to let go of Robin to make him happy. Even if Tim says he loves him and calls him dad and pretends to follow his rules, Tim will never view him as a dad.

Maybe Jack will blame the coma. He’ll think it was the start of everything going wrong. Maybe he’ll remember, for just a moment, Timothy crying as they dropped him off at his boarding school — just 7 years old and so scared to be separated from his pack — begging them not to leave, clinging to his shirt asking why he didn’t love him enough to stay. But then his mind will reject it, not ready to face a reality where it was always this broken. And he will blame Bruce. He hates Bruce Wayne and everything this man represents as a threat to his family.

So he’ll move to raise the gun, to threaten Bruce Wayne, the prince of Gotham, off of his front porch, only for Dana to tap him on the shoulder and ask him to let Tim through. Because this isn’t about Jack and Bruce or even Jack and Tim. It’s about Tim. It’s about what his instincts need.

Jack will look at his son, really look at him and not the son he wished Tim was but the son Tim is. And he’ll see his son staring at Bruce with so much unmasked love and trust, a look he hasn’t seen since Tim was toddler in his arms. And he’ll step aside. Because for all his faults, Jack Drake loves his son. And it’s the single most selfless thing he’ll ever do as a parent.

And three weeks later, he’ll be dead.

daphne's blessing 🌿

it is november, and yesterday it felt like it was supposed to be snowing. in boston, november used a winter month, not a fall month. it is supposed to be chilly; rarely capping over 45F. it is a sweater-and-jacket month. it is a "maybe a scarf too" month. in my childhood, november meant blizzards and sleet.

it did not snow. tomorrow the weather predicts a high of 76.

i have spent so many years of my life studying the longterm possibilities of climate change - the culmination of capitalism wreaking havoc on the bodies of people, animals, plants - but every so often i am still shocked by something small and personal.

in a hundred years, when someone goes outside in boston - will they know the feeling of "snow in the air"?

i know it's a learned feeling, a sensation that maybe only longterm experience can teach. a few years ago, i was walking with my friend who had just moved up from the south. i said it smells like snow and she gave me this look like - what the fuck. i said it feels like snow too, which didn't help. she looked up to the bright blue sky and then back at me and then back at the sky. 12 hours later, we had 3 inches. you can just tell if it's going to snow.

except i can't tell, anymore. i stand outside in a tee shirt and watch my dog dance around a lake. we're in a drought and the skin of the water has peeled back twenty meters. the lake is tamed, quiet, puddlelike and sour. my pokemon go app warns there's a weather condition in my area.

my dog gets too hot from running and sits in the water and i want to laugh about his long frame and how awkwardly he sits - and i can't. some simian part of my brain is scratching the walls. it was supposed to snow. it was supposed to snow, but now it's warm instead.

during the last full solar eclipse, the dogs and the birds and the crickets went crazy under utter darkness. we laughed at them then, promising it will all be okay in a moment. but some part of me is still locked in that long night: some animal sensation.

something is wrong, my body says. i can't afford eggs or rent. i go outside to watch a sunset and listen to birdsong. i don't bring a jacket. allergies are killing me this season, allergies i didn't have as a kid. everyone comments that halloween has started to feel strange, offkilter. that it's hard having "holiday cheer." my body thinks it's april, and then it thinks we're in september, and then june.

something is terribly wrong, she whispers. go outside. it is supposed to be snowing.

I want Damien and Tim to be friends so bad. I want chaotic younger sibling energy team up to make everyone else’s life hell! They both have big gremlin energy and 0 chill and poor understanding of other peoples limits.

Stop being cowards @DC, let Tim and Damien wreak havoc!

If you have fics, pls rec and my life is yours!

I know we all live the “Batfam isn’t allowed to go to crime drama watch parties or mystery shows because they crack it in five seconds” trope, but hear me out:

They’re terrible at it, because they’re trained for real life, and real life lacks all the drama. Worse. They can’t interrogate suspects themselves, check the crime scenes, follow their normal protocols.

They’re not invited because they keep complaining about what they would do.

They still excel at escape rooms, but that’s because of the riddler.

by Bannai Taku

Having read a bunch of comics now (though lets be honest, not nearly enough and I'm still working through a lot of the young justice and red robin comics when it comes to Tim content) its really funny how Batman acts like Tim doesn't lies to him. Or that he can somehow tell when Tim is lying.

Tim lies all the time during his run as Robin. He lies to his friends, his parents, Bruce! He loves lying to Bruce! Hell, are we forgetting the fake uncle scheme! And yet in various stories, when Bruce needs one of the Robins to tell him something, he asks for Tim's word because the other's "lie." It doesn't make sense?

And then I got to thinking and I realize, when Bruce says Tim doesn't lie, what he really means is "Tim doesn't break his promises."

Even in the context of the panel above, Bruce isn't trying to extract information. He's trying to get his kids to stay out of the fight.

Tim is loyal to Bruce in a way no other Robin is. Dick and Jason left (Dick to find himself and less said about Jason the easier). Steph and Bruce have a sort-of relationship that never felt really close to me. Damian is a child with a burning desire to prove himself and no real understanding of his own limits. Plus -- for a good chunk of his run and really depending on his writer -- warring priorities. He wants to do right by both of his birthrights.

Tim found Bruce when he was sucidal. Tim found him when he was at his lowest and stayed. Tim found him in the timestream when everyone else thought Bruce was dead. Even now, with a new mantle as Red Robin, Tim has stayed! He’s not in another city. Yes he has his teams. But Tim is in Gotham. Tim works with Bruce. Tim is, first and foremost, an idealist boarding on a romantic with a deep belief in the power/symbolism of Batman & Robin. And that idealism means Tim is loyal to Batman.

So when Bruce says "Tim don't lie to me." What Tim hears is, "Give me your word and promise me." And I think that says a lot about their relationship.

| a little tomfoolery