It's mostly the fault of poor editorial practices that B&R is so heavily misaligned continuity-wise w/ the main batman book. But walk with me for a minute:
You are Damian Wayne. You are 14 years old and have had one of the worst years of your life last year. Which is saying a lot.
Your brother, one of the people you were closest to, got shot in the head and forgot who you were. Your best friend went to space for a week and came back 3/4 years older than you, taking away your previously established dynamic and leaving you to have to bond all over again w/ a new one. You may or may not have gone wayyy too far with your new superhero team, who now all hate you, because you fucked up big time*
And worst of all, when you do try to do the right thing, you end up forced to watch Alfred, a father figure to you, the only one at your birthday that year, the person who has been so patient, loving and trusting with you, even when you probably didnt deserve it...die. you watch him die, and feel it's all your fault.
And your dad never corrects you on that last point. So you run away.
First to your mom who can tell something's up with you, she knows you don't give up that easy, you decide not to stay with her because you remembered how actually, neither of your parents are good at communicating with you despite their best efforts, so now you're 14 and flying solo.
And you do fly solo. For a while. Make new friends, new enemies. You think you're better off for it. You've got your best friend and your brother back. They're not around as much. It's fine.
And eventually your dad tells you that it's not your fault that Alfred died. Bit late but it's appreciated. Really. There's a bit of a hiccup where you get possessed by a demon and wage war against your father but after that, all in all, you two are...together again.
You start to think maybe you want to give him another chance, for the two of you to be father and son.
And in a change of pace, it works out! It's going good, mostly. He insists you go to highschool, you resist, feel like he wants you to be something that you're not (wants you to be normal), but eventually you acquiesce for your own reasons. He cheers you on at soccer and nosies around at your fundraising events with the other parents and gives you a stern talking to about your choice of girlfriend. Because he cares.
Except all the while this is going on, your dad is currently having his brain slowly taken over by an evil version of himself that he created and every time you look away he's slowly tearing your family apart (your brothers are just barely keeping it together. The ones who didn't get lobotmized that is Jesus Christ). You keep taking his side in these conflicts, for whatever reason. Maybe because he promised it would be different this time, and it isn't** and you're going to stick with him until he keeps his word for once.
But at the end of the day?
It's like your brother says. You're not the one who saves him. Broadly speaking, you've made things worse and needed others to come save you. And what else is Robin really for? You thought it was about redemption and teamwork but guess you're wrong. It's about saving your self destructive, apparently two-faced and erratic father. And you can't even do that right.
* TT (2016) by Adam Glass is a racist ooc mess, but unfortunately it's still canon so I'm referencing here, though like a lot of works authors clearly wish weren't canon but are, it's been subsequently glossed over. Win? Maybe? Or not?
** again Zdarky's characterization of Damian is so outdated as to be ooc, and considering the way he constantly and explicitly uses it to illustrate Tim's strengths as robin, I'd argue there's. Also implications there. But the batshit insanity of the main batbook compared to B&R rn is crucial for this post, so I'm attempting to justify it. This time..
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I'm not sure if your event is open just yet (potential time differences) but may I request Lilia, as the ghost, with the prompt 6.Bump in the night with romantic, fluff and maybe a bit of horror cause we know Lilia likes to scare people please?
I'm so sorry if I didn't do this right 😅
Bump in the Night; Lilia Vanrouge
Content; Gender-neutral reader, implied romantic feelings/pining
Content Warning; Swearing, light fear
Word Count; 700+
A/N; I hope you like what I came up with, Lilia will always be a little imp. And don't worry about formatting, you did everything perfectly!
Please do not put my work into AI. If you would like to see more of my work check out my masterlist!
You were grumbling to yourself as you lit some candles while holding a flashlight under your chin.
The power had gone out due to a blizzard, right when you were in the middle of catching up on your favourite show. But the weather didn’t care about the plotline or the barely warm soup that was now sitting sadly on your stovetop. No show and no dinner, you were shit out of luck tonight by the looks of it.
So instead, you grabbed all the candles you could find, a small horde of blankets, and hunkered down.
You fidgeted around, picking at some loose strings, and tapping to the beat of the battery-operated clock.
… bored bored bored THIS SUCKS bored bored bored …
You dragged your hands down your face. Why couldn’t the power go out while you were asleep? Why did it have to go out on one of your only quiet nights to yourself? Why couldn’t the power wait until you had your dinner?
The wind howled outside as if it were mocking you.
The hairs on the back of your neck stood on end, and the candles snuffed out, one by one. Not by a draft, or wind, but as if someone was pinching off the flame. The room was cast into darkness, only the pale blue light from outside lighting everything up in a dim silver cast.
Face the issue at hand that had all levels of nope nope NOPE written all over it? Or, hide under the blankets like you were a kid again?
… you hid under the blankets. You reasoned it wasn’t from fear, but rather to conserve your body heat, since hey, the candles died out due to some unforeseen and totally normal reason.
But then you smelt something burning.
There was no power though, nothing was working so why was something burning?
You shuffled to the kitchen and peered out from your blanket cocoon.
The soup, which was barely lukewarm, was now a charred mess of black sludge.
“The hell,” you hissed, eyeing the baffling liquid. Part of your brain was screaming DANGER DANGER DANGER!!! And the other part? It was mourning the loss of your dinner.
A breathy chuckle was in your ear.
You wanted to move, but you couldn’t. You were frozen in place by some unseen force.
You felt delicate fingers trace the back of your neck before they came to a stop at a pulse point, which was easy enough to find since your pulse was beating like a trapped bird trying to escape a cage.
“You always look the same,” the voice whispered, the chuckle and playfulness long gone.
The voice flitted closer, and you could make out a hazy figure in your peripheral vision, but just barely.
The figure, a petite figure, came to a stop in front of you. The only thing about them that felt physical, that was the most clear, were their magenta almost red eyes. They bore down on you with a weight; of knowing, of countless years, of longing, and a mix of grief and mischievous — an odd combination.
“What do you want,” you asked, fighting your mouth to spit out the words.
The man, you assumed the spectre to be a man at least, gave you a soft smile.
He took your face into his cold hands, or at least tried to, and rubbed circles into the apple of your cheeks. “Many things, dearie,” he sighed softly, “but only if you want them too. I’ll leave if you want me to. I just want to see you happy.”
An odd thing to say when you nearly gave me a stroke.
Despite that near stroke though, you didn’t sense any malevolence from the ghostly figure who held you softly. And despite his cold touch, he was nothing but warmth, but in the sense of a weak candle.
One must just take care of the flame to see it grow.
Time after time, Lilia would find you, his spirit drawn towards yours.
I love you.
Never really said, but it would end in the same way. Him quietly loving you from the sidelines until he found his opening. An opening into your life, and your heart.
~~~~~~~
Taglist; @afunkyfreshblog @bloomstruck @eynnwwyjth @identity-theft-101 @ithseem @lucid-stories @moonsoup01637 @ryker-writes @twistwonderlanddevotee @xxoomiii
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ccan you share any facts about the lights out au :3
i can try!
one thing i'm trying to incorporate that they get a Lot more puppety once the lights go out - their expressions can no longer change! Frank's frown is fixed! i've been holding off on this a bit since trying to imagine like... Barnaby getting mad but it's just this fuckin blank muppet face kills me but. hey what if they all had eyebrows that were built to move- also it's Important to the "Plot". and if i need expressions to show emotion, i'm failing as a writer
Wally gets a skin cardigan
as time goes on the Goop™️ kinda gets a mind of its own. it finds spare puppets - or puppet parts - to use as a shell. mix'n'match, horror style!
my original design for butterfly Howdy was made for this au. do with that what you will
over the years, Wally reads a lot of books - they teach him quite a few things that he would have never known about otherwise, even if he can't fully understand half of what he reads. how does one know what whisky is - beyond a drink - if they don't know about alcohol is?
Wally makes "friends" with some critters that start living in the studio. though he thinks there's one rat - he doesn't know to call it that - and like... one roach - he also doesn't know to call it that. so he thinks the same few strange creatures are around, when in reality it's a bunch. they keep getting consumed by the Goop
Poppy sets up the post office to be more liveable / pleasant. both for a sense of normalcy and it's just something to do! she makes it nice and homey <3 to the best of her ability <3 she can't really see what she's doing <3
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