Tumgik
#cryptid dc au
puppetmaster13u · 6 months
Text
More of the cryptid DC au
Tumblr media
Previous | Next
115 notes · View notes
emo-batboy · 6 months
Text
Things Battinson Totally Did During His First Year of University
Using Unhinged or Odd Things I Also Did as a College Freshman :D
Note: for this list, let’s believe Bruce was living in an (admittedly expensive and swanky) dorm because it is required for first-years, especially those entering at a young age, and Alfred told him he needed to make friends. Also yes I did every single thing on this list. I never claimed to be a role model
Bruce, to his TA: I’m so sorry I’m late to class. I gave blood a few hours ago and almost fainted on the way here, but it won’t happen again.
Signs up for a class called “Age of Dinosaurs” despite it not being required whatsoever and proceeds to work his entire schedule around it
Bruce: Your mental health is super important. If you think you should see the on-campus therapist, go see them. Friend: Fine. I’ll sign up for therapy if you sign up for therapy too. Bruce: Hold on-
Finds a loophole in his housing contract that allows him to get a pet frog, calls him kermit :)
Gets a second frog because Kermit was lonely, names it Constantine after Muppets Most Wanted, then realizes that they’re gay for each other. Wonders if the rainbow-colored rocks he got them triggered anything
Swings dramatically between calling Alfred every single day and ghosting him for weeks, cries when he realizes what he did
“Accidentally” joins the student body council, doesn’t know what he’s doing, gets re-elected anyway
Molds a dragon out of Laffy Taffy instead of doing his work
Bruce: *joins Honors, gets all A’s, takes the max amount of classes, has several minors, overachieves* Also Bruce: I’m a failure.
Breaks into a building after hours to study because NO ONE KNOWS HOW TO SHUT THE FUCK UP AT THE LIBRARY
Bruce: I will not get seasonal depression this year. Bruce: *gets real and seasonal depression that year*
Meticulously schedules his day with a color-coded planner because if he sits down for too long, the thoughts will consume him
Gives a presentation to his rhetoric class on how much he likes Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (it is 20 minutes long)
Successfully allocates funding from the student body council to pay for free feminine products in the dorms OUT OF SPITE because someone said it couldn't be done. fuck you, Andrew
Bruce: It is not an all-nighter if I go to sleep before my first class. Friend: It is 7:30am, the sun is in the sky, and your first class is at 12:30. Bruce: But I am getting sleep.
Refuses to go anywhere without his backpack because what if he needs three notebooks at once
Loses over 20 pounds because ✨stress✨ and scares the shit out of Alfred when he comes home for Thanksgiving
Argues with his TA over the one (1) question he got wrong on his Dinosaur exam
Bruce, calling Alfred: Hello father figure. How do I do taxes? Do I have to do them myself? Also, I think I’m having a panic attack.
Joins in on a charity arts-and-crafts project that gives kids books with matching activities made by volunteers, proceeds to commandeer the project because “it’s not color-blind friendly” and rewrites the instructions for everyone
Makes a murder wall
Goes to one (1) sports game and proceeds to leave in the first ten minutes because it’s way too loud wtf is wrong with people
Professor, addressing the lecture hall: I dare you to write an essay about these two sentences. Bruce: *writes an essay about six words, gets a 100, never even read the book*
Crawls into the ceiling for some alone time
Ghosts someone after a date because he’s too scared to tell them he didn’t know it was a date in the first place and now he feels bad
Classmate: How tf does he walk across campus that fast? I go in the same direction he does on my bike, and he’s always ahead of me. Bruce: *is gay sprinting to Dinosaur class*
Refuses to let others use his Favorite Pen TM
Constantly gets mistaken for a Grad Student because he is “so wise and mature” (bestie, that’s the autism)
Alfred: *casually mentions he got into a car accident through text* Bruce: *replies with a meme while hyperventilating because he doesn’t know what to do with that information??!*
Wears a suit to one of his finals
Regularly eats non-organic food for the first time in his life, proceeds to learn about several allergies Alfred forgot to mention he has
Writes “What is a Hot Pocket?” in calligraphy and proceeds to laugh his ass off alone in his dorm because he is so exhausted he’s reached the point of delusion
Locks himself out of his dorm right before class, frantically asks the floor group chat if someone can help, proceeds to tell the nice gay man on the floor who saved him “I love you” because his social skills have hit rock bottom
Makes a little music album display next to his desk for his favorite band (Nirvana) His friends call it a shrine, and they are technically correct
Has a blacklist of people he refuses to interact with because Reasons
Counselor: What do you want to do when you graduate? Bruce: *gestures vaguely*
Refuses to take the bus because there are people in there and he doesn’t like those
Loses one of his frogs, how tf did he do that, they’re fully aquatic, oh fuck, this is probably why they got rid of that loophole a year later because unbeknownst to Bruce, he accidentally started a frog revolution in the dorms, btw he SWEARS he did not mean to do that
Has two trash cans in his room: one for the Good Garbage, and one for the Bad Garbage. Only Bruce knows which is which
Bruce: *writes a creative piece about a ship’s final thoughts as it sinks, bringing its passengers down with it* TA: Absolutely lovely, Bruce, but are you okay?
Goes on Night Walks, keeps himself safe by maintaining a level 12 resting bitch face at all times
Earns the nickname “8th floor cryptid” after pacing the halls at 3am when it’s too cold for Night Walks (honestly tho how tf didn’t he get the nickname earlier?)
Bruce: Do you think a depressed person could do this? Bruce: *has a manic episode*
Okay that's all love you BYE
3K notes · View notes
decibly · 11 months
Text
Barry was hungry. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, as he could just grab some snacks from the kitchen, but he was watching a movie, and he was comfy. He really, really didn’t want to try and wriggle back to where he was now
“Phantom?” he called out hopefully.
A white glove emerged from the wall behind him, dropping an unopened bag of chips on top of his head. When Barry reached up to grab it, he saw that it was salt and vinegar, which explained why it was still uneaten. Phantom seemed to refuse those chips under all circumstances.
Barry didn’t really get it, because salt and vinegar was awesome, but that didn’t really matter. The point was, Phantom was a great person, even if he probably wasn’t human, and it didn’t matter if Barry hadn’t ever actually seen more of him than his arm, and he had told Barry his name by leaving a piece of paper on a table when he turned his back for three seconds after asking if there was a name for the ‘friend in the walls’, as Wally had called him.
“Thanks, Phantom!” The hand stuck itself out the wall again, forming a thumbs up.
***** ***** *****
Diana had found a bit of a problem. It wasn’t a big one, and was honestly more of an annoyance than anything, but her paper copy of Earth’s current standing with all known alien civilization was missing. She could get access to it again in a few hours, once the security upgrade to their computers was finished, but she had been intending to review it for a few weeks now and could use the extra time. 
An idea came to her suddenly, and Diana quietly asked, “Phantom? Are you here?” In answer, a chilly breeze blew through her hair. He was, then. “By any chance, would you happen to have seen my copy of th-” Interrupting her, the very papers she was looking for appeared out of nowhere on her desk. A green sticky note was stuck to it, reading ‘This? Sorry for taking it, but it was really interesting’
Diana smiled, hopefully in the ghosts direction. “Yes, that. If you want, I could see if I could get you your own copy?” Another green sticky note appeared on top of the first, this one just oozing the feeling of happiness. ‘YES PLEASE!!!’
***** ***** *****
Bruce… didn’t really know what to do about the teenager floating just outside the Watchtower. He looked like Phantom, from the few times anyone had actually seen the ghost, and he appeared to be enjoying himself in the vacuum outside instead of dying painfully, which was another point of evidence for that theory. Unsure of what else he could do, he knocked on the window on the off chance that he could get Phantom’s attention that way.
The ghost immediately vanished from view, and a strong, freezing cold breze blew in from the direction of the window Phantom had been outside. Bruce shivered violently from the unexpected chill.
Next time he would leave Phantom alone. Being out in space seemed to make him happy, and it was best not ruin that.
4K notes · View notes
fandom-lover-extra · 9 months
Text
DP X DC Prompt: Conspiracy Cryptids - Soultouch
Soulmate bonds were looked upon as a blessing. For they were rare and few and far between.
With the added presence of extraterrestrial lifeforms, there was a guarantee that it made it even more difficult to find any potential Soulmate that someone might have. 
And of course, not all Soulmate bonds were the same, most differing in variety. The point being, it was very difficult to find one's soulmate if one did have them. 
However, the media stated that it was always worth the effort. Soulmate bonds always worked out, either that be platonically or romantically, soulmates would be with each other for life.
So, what exactly did one do if their soulmate kept dying over and over again?
Tim, Bernard, Danny, and Wes all shared a soulmate bond. A touch-bond based Soulbond. They could feel anything their soulmate physically came into contact with. Skin on skin. And they could also feel any injuries their soulmate acquired.
Which, wasn't inherently an issue.
At first, the group couldn't actually tell how many soulmates they had once they realized what the soulbond was. The general consensus amongst them all was that they at least had more than one soulmate.
Danny didn't look to deeply into it. Wes and Bernard had been curious but had also left the detail alone. And Tim was the one that had been the one that had actually spent hours upon hours of sleepless nights trying to figure out just how many he had.
(He had even learned morse code in the hopes of communicating with his soulmates, but not being able to actually get his soulmates to do the same thing had more or less ruined the point.)
Everything, other than that, had been fine for the most part. Besides the general occasional scraps and bruises, everything had been fine. That was a normal occurrence amongst a touch-bond based Soulbond.
And then, Tim Drake became Robin at thirteen years old. And the injuries got a bit more severe. They were much more serious. 
This started Bernard down the path of looking into Gotham's vigilante's. It was no secret that Batman took on Young prodigies, that other heroes at times would do the same. With the injuries his soulmate was receiving, Bernard began his search.
Danny and Wes had considered that their soulmate might be apart of an abusive household. But besides hugging themselves, they couldn't add much for comfort.
And then, Danny died when he was fourteen. His end of the bond going quiet. Tim, Bernard, and Wes all assumed one of their soulmates had died. That was until Danny's end of the bond came back as if nothing had happened. Sometimes with even more bruises they didn't feel happen originally, or completely unharmed.
Tim and Bernard assumed their soulmate was in the hospital, going in-between life and death. Tim doing more than a few illegal things in an attempt to find one of his soulmates. Wes had thought the same until he had saw Phantom bleed once. Noticed how Phantom always appeared when that end of the bond went quiet and was nowhere to be seen when it came back. He drove himself insane looking for Phantom.
Danny decidedly, did not in fact know of the frenzy he was putting his soulmates through. Or the fact that he was apart of making his soulmates as insane as they are about their conspiracy theories.
2K notes · View notes
pearlypeacepeacock69 · 11 months
Text
Shadow Demon but
BABEE
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Jim Gordon's pal, the Shadow demon describes baby Dick
The Shadow Demon and the Blue Jay describes baby Jason
Finding Tim(e) describes baby Tim
Part one: sketch
Part three: Taser
2K notes · View notes
faeriekit · 11 months
Text
Health and Hybrids 👽👻💚
[I can't remember the original prompt posters for the life of me but here's a mashup between a cryptid!Danny, presumed-alien!Danny, dp x dc, and whatever prompt made the one body horror meat grinder fic.]
[Here's part one or whatever. If I feel like making more I'll make more and/or post it to ao333333.]
💚👻👽👻💚
The world is on fire, and Danny is burning.
The GAV is in shreds; wherever he’s crashed, there’s no way to determine up or down. He’s entombed in wreckage. Everything is on fire and everything burns, and it takes Danny all his strength to peel himself from where he’s contorted around the driver’s seat chair, to drag himself through the twisted metal and shards of glass with nothing but his hands and his tears.
He hurts.
It hurts so badly.
He crawls, because he can’t tell if he has legs or a tail right now, and is too afraid to find out he can’t walk by injuring one of his legs permanently. It’s hard to see through the smoke and the tears. He can’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe even if he wanted to.
There are instincts unique to being dead. Danny can’t tell up or down, and he can’t tell where he is or remember how he got here, but his core tugs him towards somewhere dark. Somewhere cool. Somewhere enclosed, even—even better, so Danny can curl up and sob in peace.
Danny wedges himself into a dark corner, curls himself up as much as he can, and lets himself drop into his core.
*
Something is touching him somethingistouchinghimsomethingistouchinghim—
Danny pops out of his core with a scream. No words. No coherency. Everything hurts, and all he can do is scream.
Someone is touching him. The thing touching him is body-shaped. Human-shaped. Danny screams higher, louder—some part of his hindbrain knows that if he screams for real then there won’t be a human but there will be guts and gore and blood, but Danny’s too tired to scream for real, and too weak. His scream is only enough to send the human sprawling back instead.
More humans take the place of the first. Danny keens, fights back a sob—when another tries to rouse him from his hiding spot with an exposed hand, Danny flashes his teeth.
The human flinches, but doesn’t go away.
Danny feigns a fanged bite. The figure jumps back. Good.
He’s too weak to run. He’s too weak to walk through the walls of his hiding spot and dart away. His visibility flickers—probably how a human found him in the first place. He’s so tired. Everything hurts. But if he looks dangerous and acts dangerous, maybe they’ll leave him alone. They have to leave him alone.
Please, please leave him alone.
They don’t.
There’s something in his face. Danny doesn’t recognize the shape immediately, but eventually something clicks: a loop on a stick is a catchpole. The strangers are trying to capture him.
He’s so afraid of something else around his neck. His whole body racks with shivers. He can’t run. He can’t bite. Please, please, please—
It doesn’t latch to his hand. It latches to his wrist.
Danny is only peripherally aware of being dragged onto his knees, of being dragged into a container. By the time the doors shut in around him, his mind is empty of anything that isn’t fear and pain, pain, pain.
He drops into his core.
*
Danny wakes up in a container.
It’s not the same container. But all containers are the same.
Danny screams. The soundwaves vibrate the glass until it shakes, slamming against the floor until cracks form in the concrete beneath him.
Still, no cracks form in the container. When he wails a second time, there’s no strength behind it. He just sobs.
He’s alone. He’s alone and he’s contained and no one is coming to get him. His transportation is in pieces. He’s injured and he’s scared. He’s so scared. Everything hurts. He wants to hide in his core and he wants to run away and he wants to slither through the wall and he doesn’t have the energy into any of it.
Danny curls up in a corner, hopes he’s left alone—or better, released—and hides.
He doesn’t know how much time passes before he hears a click.
…But he hears a click. Danny peeks open an eye.
There’s…food. He thinks it’s food, anyway. Oatmeal? It’s in a bowl and it’s beige and it’s on a tray on the ground.
Danny sniffs. …The last captors hadn’t offered him food. They hadn’t thought he’d had needs, or that they ought to feed him.
It’s a miserable, aching feeling when he thinks this is a step up.
There’s a flimsy plastic spoon on the tray. When Danny jumps on the bowl, devouring the contents as quickly as his body will let him, the spoon goes down the hatch with the gruel.
Danny falls back asleep in the far corner of the container miserable, cold, in pain, and injured. But he falls asleep full.
It’s a luxury to not be hungry.
*
There’s a click.
Danny ignores it. He’s not hungry. He’s sleepy. His body is trying to conserve calories and metabolize new ones. He doesn’t want to wake up.
The oatmeal goes uneaten.
*
There’s a click. Danny’s eyes crack open.
Apparently he’s been asleep for a while, because there are three bowls of uneaten oatmeal on the ground, waiting for him. All are in varying stages of crusting over.
Whatever. Free food. Danny wolfs it down anyway, and tucks himself back into his corner. He’s almost him-shaped again. His human traits are slowly returning, cell by cell, piece by piece. He can almost feel the fractures he knows he’ll have in his legs!
…Wait. Wasn’t his container opaque?
It’s…not anymore. The walls are clear. Danny can see—or, well, until he gets his eyes back, can sort of feel—the room around him, and the trace presences of the beings who occupy it.
It’s a lab. Danny knew it would be, but his core still drops down, down down. He had been praying he’d never see a live specimen lab ever again. He certainly hadn’t wanted to see yet another one from inside the cage.
Humans come and go from the lab. Most are in white coats and pants, but they’re not GIW. Or, well, they’re probably not GIW, anyway, considering that they’ve been feeding him. The guys in white never think of his needs, since they don’t care if he Ends or not. There are monitors that fuzz and warp in his not-vision with details he can’t make out on screen, but knows instinctively that the monitors pertain to him.
And to his capture.
There are some visitors in odd colored suits. They talk. The colorful ones don’t approach him, but they…watch.
No one approaches. Good. Danny will bite them if they do.
With the see-through window, Danny can see the bright-suited blob shove a tray of food through a slot in his container.
It doesn’t fall to the floor, though. There’s a little mechanical thing that brings the oatmeal and flimsy spoon to a safe rest on the steel floor.
…Alright. Bone appetite. Danny’s hungry, and food is food. He pours most of the bowl straight into his stretched mouth and scrapes the rest in with a spoon.
More of his wounds are sealing. Healing. His core doesn’t throb so horribly with pain. The cracks in his soul are smoothing out. With consistent food and rest, Danny will be able to actually mount an escape.
Good. Danny licks the flecks of meal from the edges of his mouth. Good.
When he naps, this time, it’s on purpose.
Soon he’ll be healed enough to leave.
*
The clear window doesn’t go away. Danny’s poor sight doesn’t improve, but he can see people come and go. Danny’s never truly left alone. There is always at least one brightly-colored human around (or one dark, silent human), and an assortment of white-coated scientists milling about.
The clear window lets them see him, presumably. If Danny wants to escape, he’ll have to be careful not to be seen.
Quietly, so quietly. Danny slo-o-o-owly amps up the resonance of his core.
There are cameras. There must be. There are always cameras. Disrupting the electrical flow in and around his container is essential to getting himself out of sight.
The lights flicker. The human milling about all flock to monitors, silent voices coming muffled through the see-though walls of the container. Danny reels in his resonance just a touch—whoops.
But no one is looking.
Something twinges in Danny. Well…no one is looking.
Very, very quietly, Danny peels a relatively safe amount of ectoplasm away from his core. A Danny-shaped shadow forms, and, yeesh, does he really look that bad?
Whatever. There’s no time.
Danny turns himself invisible. He slips through the walls of his container, and leaves the lab to explore the base.
1K notes · View notes
Text
Fake Cryptids, Real Ghosts
Ok, so dp x dc/batfam because this AU has me by the throat but what if it's the fake cryptid batfamily AU who never joined the JL.
Just...imagine it. The Batfamily has been protecting Gotham quietly but fiercely by scaring the daylights out of criminals as creatures that go bump in the night. A bit of stage magic, frightening method acting, contortion, a whole language comprised of chirps, growls, and body language, and the best tech possible and you've got a recipe for striking fear into the hearts of everyone.
They've got shrines on the rooftops, vaguely on the JL radar (Cause really, who's gonna believe that Gotham, one of the worst cities has a demon problem? Constantine? Homeboy took one look at Gotham and went Nope.) and they're protected cause any self respecting Gothamite wouldn't go spilling the beans to Outsiders. The Bats keep them safe. Who would believe them anyways?
Enter half dead, half alive Danny Fenton.
Danny Fenton who has a best friend's named Tucker and Sam who find out about the Gotham Cryptids, and go absolutely ham on research because here lies something,a bunch of someone's who are Other. Maybe they're creepy but they're cool and they're Heroes and they help people.
Sure, at first it was an attempt from Sam and Tucker to help their best friend feel less alone in the face of other, more 'normal' heroes and people out there in the world. Maybe they try to further bury the Bats online cause if anyone understands keeping on the down low, it would be Amity Parker's. For awhile, Danny Fenton, sometimes Phantom is simply happy to know he's not alone.
Then he's outed and his sister who's long since been ecto-contaiminated is put at risk there's nowhere that seems safer. Gotham is a chaotic city, even without the Bats factoring in. After all Gotham has (Demons-Spirits-Creatures?) The Bats already. Who would care if a halfa and his sister hide out there? As long as they're respectful of their territory, it'll be fine right? Besides, they've got to warn the Bats anyways about the GIW and government. They're coming after ghosts, who knows if they'll be next? Spooky things have to look out for each other after all.
Cue shenanigans as Phantom who stops hiding all of his creepier traits as a ghost walks up to the Totally Human but Faking it Batman with really thoughtful gifts for all of their shrines (And one fruitcake), no heartbeat and an earnest plea for a safe haven in their Haunt because the Ancients taught him manners and the importance of respecting another entities territory.
Tumblr media
6K notes · View notes
phoenixcatch7 · 8 months
Text
Wayne doll house: demon children.
Idea: each of the batkids is theorised to have a different origin.
Thing is, there's so many of them. The oldest is actually the youngest in body. It seems to be able to share memories with those who follow. It changes design right before a new bat appears.
The hero in the town over is definitely one of them, but what's it doing over there?? Asking just gets non-answers.
What happened to the ones that the Joker tried to destroy? One - the oldest and smallest - came back, but different, whereas the other - the purple and orange one - came back for a while and then vanished again for good.
None of them seem to age??
The first, smallest, oldest, it seemed to be some sort of circus performer? It gave its acrobatics to the blue one when it arrived, grew clever and defensive. It gave that to the skull headed red one, focused on technology and detective work after the Incident. Then again, and again, and one time even the bat changed along with it, but though the bat returned to normal the little Robin didn't, and now it's just as stabby and creative as it is small and creepy.
It's a good sort of creepy now, after over a decade of beating up bad guys and comforting victims, Gotham has gotten used to it, but outsiders don't much like it.
The justice league have a different opinion.
They know, or at least can observe, that the... Souls? Brains? Programs? Switch around, that it's not memories but persons that bring the new bats to life.
They just don't know where batman gets them. The new one, especially, is very circumspect.
For all this talk of the blood son, all the bats calling it demon child with varying levels of fondness, the way batman doesn't deny the claims...
Thing is the bat doesn't have blood. Everyone's well aware of this by now. Whatever sulpheric black tar he and the bats leak probably-certainly isn't blood, or at least... Not anything with dna.
So... What blood?? If not the bat's, why does it tie the newest mind of Robin to him?
Captain marvel is the first to think of an idea.
A blood child of a demon for a blood ritual for a demon.
Constantine and Zatanna second the notion - it's perfectly possible. Reasonable, even. The bat admitted himself he had no way to procreate the way humans did, nor any interest in doing so. Wanting a legacy was perfectly normal.
Except he already had, what, seven, eight, nine kids? He loved all of them, it was clear, and he'd always seemed happy with them. He'd even sighed over how many he had, had rebuffed the teasing about getting more. The new Robin mind had been a surprise to everyone, and the old one in a new body had been a little salty about it.
So the new theory was that batman hadn't decided to get a new Robin. Maybe the old mind had been ejected unwillingly! It had happened at roughly the same time batman had gotten a new personality - maybe the incidents were related?
But if batman hadn't done the ritual... Who had?
Who would do something like that???
Cultists. Cultists would do something like that. But giving the bat a son unwillingly seemed... A very odd goal, even for that type.
So... Had they messed up? Had they tried to summon the bat with a blood sacrifice ritual, and summoned a demon instead? Had it partially worked? Was the bat susceptible to demon summonings?? Did the summoning damage his own mind/consciousness/soul in some way, and that led to the creation of the new demon child while the bat changed until he'd healed????
How kind of batman to take it in!
Tldr; the league thinks Robin V is a demon born/created through a failed summoning ritual involving blood sacrifice that made batman like puns until he healed. The truth is the canon events of Damian arriving at the manor only for b to get tossed into the time stream, becoming the Robin to nightwing-batman while Tim, who is much less annoyed about it than canon, focuses on getting him back. Lmao.
645 notes · View notes
moosieart · 2 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
More Cryptid sketches.
(Silent Hearts and Silent Knights)
394 notes · View notes
absolutely-esme · 6 months
Text
Monster!Tim Coraline AU Idea
This idea would not leave me alone.
It’s a cross between a meta!/magic!Tim au and a Coraline au.
Before I get into it, I feel like I should explain.  I was on a bit of an Eldritch!Batfamily and Cryptid!Batfamily kick.  Then I found a collection of supernatural Tim aus.  Then I stumbled across a Coraline au.  There’s probably also some inspiration in there from vampire au fics.
It didn’t really jell until the idea occurred to me of a scene where some frightened villain asks Tim “What kind of monster are you?” and Tim says “The hungry kind.”
...
The idea is that somewhere back along the way, Tim’s family tree includes some kind of supernatural creature which may or may not have been an eldritch entity.
The supernatural heritage allows Tim to acquire abilities from other entities he has defeated, and Gotham is absolutely full of the supernatural if you pay attention.
Of course, Tim’s power isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.  It actually comes packaged with some pretty nasty side effects.
One of those side effects is perpetual Hunger.  Tim is always Hungry.  There is no way to stop it.  He eats enough to stay healthy, but he still feels Hunger at all times.  Increasing his food intake will not help and will screw up his metabolism and cause him to need more for normal function.  If this was allowed to spiral out of control it could eventually reach a point where he was physically unable to eat the amount of food he needed to function and starved to death on a full stomach. 
Fixing it is stupid hard because this particular sort of magical inheritance is really fucking inconvenient.  And, of course, whatever is up with his biology also makes him insanely susceptible to addiction, so no coffee for him unless he wants caffeine withdrawal symptoms all the time for however long it takes to fix that.  The constant Hunger also makes it difficult to get enough sleep.  Have you ever tried to go to sleep on an empty stomach?  Not easy, was it?  Imagine that every night.
The Hunger is fairly central to the nature of the magic.  Whatever supernatural entity he’s descended from, it is the Hungry kind.  The ritual of defeating another supernatural entity, taking a bit of the defeated entity’s power, and incorporating it into himself serves as a sort of metaphorical devouring, (and metaphors matter more to magic than they do to normal biology).  That’s why he’s able to gain power and abilities from defeated foes. 
...
Tim’s relationship with his parents is complicated.  His supernatural heritage comes from his mother’s side of the family.  She did her best to teach him about it and how to cope with it, but a lot of knowledge was lost over the generations due to persecution forcing those like them into hiding more than once.  There may have been a few individuals who spiraled out of control and caused small-scale famines before losing their lives.  It only takes a few cases for people to decide that a specific category of people is simply not worth the risk of having around.  Janet always referred to herself and Tim (as well as anyone else sharing the condition) as “those afflicted with Gluttony.”  This is the closest they have to a name for the condition.
One of the important things Janet Drake teaches her son is to pursue his passions.  It is incredibly important for individuals like them to have things outside the self that they can draw satisfaction and fulfilment from, things that keep them going in the face of the relentless Hunger.  This is what leads Tim to his night-time photography of Gotham, and eventually to his fascination with the Bats. 
Janet’s passions are archeology and travel.  Unfortunately, traveling from dig site to dig site is not a particularly stable or safe environment to raise a child in.  She needs to do these things to remain in good health.  Without her external coping mechanisms, she could start spiraling.  If she starts spiraling, it might trigger her son to start spiraling too because children in their developmental years are delicate, and this type of hereditary magic is fucking inconvenient (there might be ways of managing things that make it easier to live with, but between the knowledge lost and the risks that come with experimentation, they don’t have much info on how anything works).  She comes home as much as she can without the risk of compromising both their health.
She also taught Tim how to calculate appropriate portion sizes based on nutritional data so as not to screw up his metabolism, and how to fix it if he does mess up.  She also stayed and managed the process the first time it happened because the process of returning the metabolism of one afflicted with Gluttony to normal after it’s gotten out of hand is difficult and unpleasant and Tim wasn’t old enough to handle it by himself.  The nanny that had overfed him hadn’t been malicious or unreasonable, she’d just been operating on the assumption that he had standard human biology.  It took months to get Tim healthy again.  It took several hefty bribes to keep things under wraps.  Janet doesn’t know if there are still people out there hunting their kind, but she’s not willing to risk it.
Janet may not know about the aspect of the family magic that lets them gain powers from defeating other entities.  It’s possible that she was holding off on explaining this until he was older and more ready for the responsibility of multiple superpowers.  It’s also possible that the knowledge got lost somewhere along the way and Janet didn’t discover it herself because she didn’t spend her childhood running around Gotham at night and was more the sort of person who would stay home and read when she had trouble sleeping.
...
Tim discovers his ability to gain abilities from defeating other supernatural things fairly early on.  The type of defeat can vary, but it has to be something of significance.  A fight will work for most, but there are other particular challenges that will work for specific cases.
The first things a young Tim is able to beat are these small things, invisible to most, that gain power from learning secrets.  What that power is used for, I couldn’t tell you.  They don’t seem to do much other than sneak around and learn secrets.  Tim doesn’t know if there’s a proper name for these things or not, but he calls them Secret Hunters.  They are absolutely everywhere in Gotham. 
Secret Hunters are invisible to most, but Tim is able to see them.  It might be because of his own supernatural nature, or it might be something else entirely.  If it’s hereditary it must have skipped his parents’ generation.  Neither of them seem to be able to see them.  Tim gains improved stealth and a sense for when something is hidden from catching Secret Hunters until they wise up and start avoiding him.  (Catching them works in place of a fight because secret hunters primarily operate on stealth and evasion.)
He can’t just magically know secrets, but he can tell when there is a secret.  (He still figured out Batman’s and Robin’s secret identities on his own merit.  The most this ability would have done is alert him to the fact that they had secret identities if that hadn’t already been obvious from the fact that they were wearing masks.)
He also gets various other abilities from other things he encounters while scrambling all over Gotham at night.  Nearly doesn’t get out of some of the scrapes he gets himself into.  He gains the ability to cut with his fingernails as if they were razors from something that nearly killed him.  He gains the ability to climb like a goat from a Jersey Devil.  Etc.
...
At some point, Tim is targeted by a beldam.  He doesn’t get the kind of warnings that Coraline does, but his ability to sense secrets lets him know that the Beldam is hiding something, and any child raised in any part of Gotham knows to be suspicious of things that seem too good to be true.  Tim doesn’t have a convenient seeing stone from the neighbor, but he does have the advantage of his own supernatural nature which the Beldam doesn’t know about.
Tim finds a button-eyed doll that looks like him after his parents leave on yet another trip, and thinks it’s a gift they meant to give him before leaving.  They do often bring interesting souvenirs.  It wouldn’t be at all unusual for them to find an artist who sews dolls to look like people and have one made based on pictures of him.  Later on, he discovers the key. 
This Beldam is older and more powerful than the one from Coraline.  She has more power and more past victims to work with, so she’s able to make a larger, more populated world. 
Oh by the way, I head-canon that the Other versions of people in the Other world are actually past victims of the Other Mother, remade and dressed up for whatever role she has them play.  The three ghosts were just the three most recent and not fully processed for use yet.  That’s why the Others are able to act against her sometimes (Other Wybie saving Coraline from the mirror, Other Father tossing the eye to Coraline) or say things she doesn’t want them too (Other Father says “so sharp you won’t feel a thing” and Other Mother kicks him under the table).
The Other Mother doesn’t know all that Tim knows, so the Other World has inconsistencies like Other Batman and Other Robin sitting across the table from Other Bruce and Other Jason.  She doesn’t know they’re the same people.  She just knows that they’re all important to Tim.  She also tries to tell him to “eat as much as he wants” when his real mother was the one to explain the dangers of attempting to eat to fullness for people with their condition.
There isn’t a cat to warn Tim but he doesn’t need it.  He can sense hidden intentions in everything, and he’s fully capable of uncovering the hidden secrets himself. 
Tim doesn’t have a cat, but he does have Other Robin, who might have been made from whatever remained of someone close to one of the people mirrored in the Other World made for Tim.  He doesn’t remember his life, but somehow he feels incredibly motivated to help a boy who cares dearly for whoever and is willing to let him know that they're living a good life out there in the real world.
Tim discovers the nature of the other world and sets out to free the souls trapped there.  He fights the Beldam will all the viciousness and desperation of someone who knows they’ve only got one shot.  He takes everything he can from this fight as he makes sure she won’t ever hurt anyone again.  He doesn’t stop until the beldam is well and truly dead.  Then he unravels Other Gotham and spills all of the souls out into the world where they can move on and rest.
This is how Tim learns to Sew.  He can’t make entire populated worlds like the beldam, but that’s mostly because he refuses to do what she did.  He can control things he’s made (though there’s limits on how much) and even see through buttons he’s sewn (onto cushions and such, he's not the Other Mother).  He also gets some minor illusory powers that let him make things look a bit brighter/nicer/cheerier than they are.  It takes quite some time before he’s comfortable with using these powers.  Trauma is a bitch like that.
Part of the reason this version of Tim was so desperate to do something about Batman losing it out of grief is because he already has Evil Batman trauma from Other Batman, and he doesn’t need that shit happening in real Gotham.
By this point Tim has a collection of powers that allow him to navigate the more dangerous parts of Gotham largely without fear.  Now he has to learn how to manage without using any that he isn’t one hundred percent certain he can sneak past Batman, which means he’ll have to divide his attention between learning from the training and not letting himself do things the supernatural way.  This is going to suck.
It does, in fact, suck.
Oh, it turns out some of the rogues are a bit supernatural.  He gains a bit of an intuitive understanding of the health of plants from Ivy.  He gains the ability to taste emotions from Scarecrow.  (Also, Johnathan Crane is a freaking weirdo, fear tastes like spoiled milk!)  The rogues with supernatural tendencies are freaking terrified of the new Robin because he always seems like he wants to freaking eat them.  The non-supernatural types don’t get it.
Eventually, Red hood breaks into Titan’s tower.  Tim, by this point, is very good at deciphering how supernatural entities work and is packing an extensive inventory of powers.  He realizes quickly that this is some kind of manipulative entity that feeds on rage and pain attached to an unwitting host.  When he realizes that the unknowing (and therefore unconsenting) host is Jason Todd, he tells the Lazarus Entity in no uncertain terms to give Jason back or perish.
Jason, who does not realize he has a malicious, mind-warping, supernatural parasite and believes there to be no one other than himself and Tim present, is understandably confused.
Tim decides that the Lazarus entity has had its chance and springs into action.
Jason is treated to the terrifying sight of just what Tim Drake is like when he’s not expending conscious effort on not being something out of a horror movie.  Suddenly he’s in the middle of a spider’s web and no matter how hard he tries to fight back everything around him is under the control of his opponent.  Furniture flies around on puppet strings.  Getting too close puts him in range of the freaking claws this kid apparently has!?  Trying to get away just leaves him caught in strings and the more he struggles the more entangled he becomes!  The new Robin is skittering and gliding around in a decidedly inhuman way. 
Jason honestly thinks he's going to die when he finds himself bound with Tim standing over him.  He passes out when Tim rips the Lazarus entity away from him and destroys it. 
Tim gains the ability to heal from defeating the Lazarus entity.
Jason is surprised and confused when he wakes up bundled in a handmade quilt with his head in Tim’s lap and a cool compress on his forehead, feeling sore but more well and whole than he has since before he died.
Jason later decides that his memories of the fight at Titans Tower must be some kind of weird fever dream caused by his body purging the last of the Lazarus Water from his system. It goes along with Tim's account of things.
According to Tim, Jason entered the tower, initiated a lock-down, and then collapsed on the floor. Then, Tim moved him closer to a wall where he was less likely to get stepped on than in the middle of the walkway and did his best to take care of him there because Jason was simply too large and heavy for him to carry all the way to the med bay by himself.
This is far more believable and less of a mind screw than what Jason remembers. Obviously this tiny, baby-faced kiddo who played nursemaid for a stranger who broke into the tower and now looks up at him with wide, starry eyes couldn't actually be the terrifying, predatory creature from the nightmare. It was all just a bad dream.
He's honestly glad he collapsed before he had time to do any harm. The poor kid will never have to know what Jason went there to do. Jason knows, though, and he'll do his damned best to make up for it. He may have flubbed first impressions, but he is going to be the best damn big brother that ever big brothered.
...
Tim might or might not go full on feral cryptid when Bruce is lost in the Timestream. I haven't decided. He will probably pick a fight with the Lazarus Pit much to the confusion and alarm of everyone around.
That’s all I’ve got so far.
305 notes · View notes
puppetmaster13u · 5 months
Text
You know what I need more of? The Batkids completely fucking with the Justice League and their rogues and coming up with stories for their existence.
Like I am talking about the creation of demigods sort of stories, like Loki sort of stories.
Duke has convinced all of Gotham that he's the Bat Signal brought to life and that's why he's never seen at night and why the signal literally doesn't work during the day. He's waiting giddily for the story to spread outside of the city.
The batkids have convinced half the League that Nightwing is quite literally Batman's lovechild with Justice. Hey, Constantine had a one night stand with the manifestation of a city and they've dealt with gods before, so surely it's not that surprising? Right???
I need more of the Batkids being little shits, of Alfred the-greatest-enabler Pennyworth backing them up and Bat(the-biggest-troll)man to never confirm the stories, but he doesn't deny them either.
7K notes · View notes
duskyashe · 1 year
Text
NaNoWriMo Day #2
[masterlist] [part two] [part three] [part four]
Prompt found here
=============‹«⟨·•★•·⟩»›=============
The thing about being the half-ghost protector of a small Midwestern city whose rogues gallery consists of both the inhabitants of a parallel dimension intrinsically linked to the "living" one as well as goons from the government, is that you tend to get a bit lonely. There's never any representation for him or others like him among the well known heroes of the world, he's really got no one to model how he should fight his city's crime. Sure, Superman has a lot of powers that are similar to his own, but he's a beloved alien not a hated eldritch entity. And sure, Danny loves knowing there's other sentient life out there, but when the government is one of his rogues, it's kinda hard to look up to government approved heroes.
Though Captain Marvel was pretty cool, not gonna lie.
But his point was, as far as Danny knew, he was the only eldritch being/cryptid to have taken up heroics, ever, and that… that hurts sometimes, that he was the only one out of a rather large cast of possible "other" beings in the world to decide that protecting others was worth more than his own potential safety. He was both the frontrunner and the sacrificial lamb. If he succeeded in changing the narrative, in convincing humanity that supernatural beings and entities couldn't be defined by a few really well known bad nuts, then others would publicly fly his banner, but if he didn't, if he failed, then, well, no ectoplasmic skin off their metaphorical noses, y'know? It was isolating.
Danny honestly expected the rest of his existence would be defined by that loneliness, by being the only hero to be of a supernatural flavor others were actively terrified of. Until, that is, Sam and Tucker nearly broke his bedroom door down one Sunday morning, breathless and beaming, which was so out of character for Sam that Danny was kinda expecting his ghost sense to go off signaling she was being overshadowed. But no, she wasn't. She was genuinely excited about something, enough to act like the daughter her parents wished she was, not the down-to-earth goth beauty they actually had.
"Woah, guys, what's up?" Danny asked, sitting up from his sprawled out position on his bed. Tuck shut and locked his door while Sam pulled her phone out and showed it to him. He stared at the screen in shock for a few minutes as his friends got their breathing under control. "Is… is that… is that what I think it is?"
Sam nodded, grinning like a loon. "Tuck double checked everything. There's multiple cases with enough correlation between them, buried deep enough in the web, that for it all to be one big hoax or just a huge coincidence would be functionally impossible. This is real, Danny. You're not alone anymore." On her phone was a website, which looked like a newspaper of some sort, with a headline reading, "The Cryptid Known as Batman Strikes Again! Twoface Back in Arkham!" It was posted just last week. Danny took Sam's phone and looked through the open tabs. There were articles and blog posts and Reddit pages and YouTube channels dedicated to what seemed to be a whole clan of cryptids who made Gotham City their home. All of them praised the elusive clan. Thanked them for protecting them. For saving them.
Danny started tearing up. He couldn't help it. Here was proof that what he was doing wasn't all for nothing. It was possible to be a hero loved by those he protected while being a member of the supernatural, part-time though his membership may be.
It was at that point that fourteen year old Danny "Phantom" Fenton decided the entity called "Batman" was his hero, his idol, the being he looked up to most of all. His method of fighting crime was a tad too violent for Danny, but his style was perfect. He couldn't change who or what he was, not without some serious side effects, but if "Batman" and their clan could turn the public's favor to their side despite being so obviously not human, something even literal aliens didn't attempt to do, then screw it, Danny was going to do the same thing. He would embrace his ghostliness as Phantom, instead of trying to pretend he was still human in that form. Maybe that was his problem, anyway? Could others tell he was pretending to still be human as Phantom? It didn't really matter at the moment, but it would be interesting to test that going forward…
=============‹«⟨·•★•·⟩»›=============
In the end, a year and a half is all it took for everything to completely fall apart. Danny would say he was surprised, but honestly, he'd seen this coming as far back as that incident with Pariah Dark, which ended with him ascending the ghostly throne. The way Amity Park reacted to that whole ordeal was rather telling. Although a number of the younger crowd had started shifting their views of Phantom, too many of the adults still saw him as a threat and vilified him, even after he saved all of reality.
Living in Amity Park had quickly become too dangerous for him and his team—Sam, Tucker, and Jazz—, but while Jazz was fairly easily able to get custody of Danny and get the two of them away from the boiling cauldron of tension, Sam and Tucker didn't have that option. His core protested leaving members of his fright behind in such a hazardous situation, but with no idea how things would go down where Jazz and Danny were running to, they had to leave them for the time being. If everything went to plan, then Jazz would call the rest of their fright to them.
Thankfully, with him being the ghost king now, his ghostly rogues had cut back on their attacks on his haunt during the past year, instead scheduling time with Jazz to teach him more about ghost culture, as well as other supernatural beings and their cultures. Due to these lessons, Danny, Sam, and Tucker would often debate what kind of beings Batman's clan had and how many beings the clan contained instead of finishing their homework.
Batman was obviously an entity loosely tied to shadows that had ascended to minor divinity over the past few years, while Robin had to be some sort of fey being, considering their eternally youthful appearance. This theory was backed by Robin's ability to mimic the voices of seemingly anyone. Raven, the next oldest member of Batman's clan, had to be eldritch in origin, though it was interesting that they claimed a name so closely related to death and prophecy. Danny and his friends couldn't quite agree on what kind of eldritch being Raven was, just that they were one.
Condor was an interesting being to debate, as the name also had strong ties with death, as well as rebirth. Sam thought that meant Condor was a Phoenix that wanted to stay on theme with the rest of the clan, while Tuck thought Condor was some kind of zombie. Jazz was actually the one to propose Condor may have been a lich, which honestly kind of made sense. Condor was known to have looser morals than the others in the clan, which fit with the general idea of how liches come into being, especially if those they killed came back as undead servants like some rumors claimed.
Around the same time Condor showed up, whisperings of a being named Oracle started showing up within the forums Tuck had hacked. While there was no confirmed record of appearance for her, there were multiple accounts of the other members of the bat clan sending words of thanks to her, so she might have been the actual spirit of the Oracle of Delphi, which would be so cool.
Ibis was definitely some sort of trickster spirit, possibly even a kitsune. With their tendency to dance around an opponent until victory was assured and their tenuous grasp on the humanoid form, they couldn't really be anything else. Black Bat had to be another entity loosely tied to shadows, though they seemed more eldritch than Batman was. Starling could literally only be a banshee, what with her death shrieks every time she attacked. Weirdly enough, Signal seemed to already have a supernatural theory attached to them, said theory being that they were the bat signal given sentience and humanoid form, though Danny thought they might be more of a vengeful spirit.
There were likely others, those not as well known or even ever seen. There always were. For Danny's fright, that was Ellie, who was constantly on the move, especially now that she'd mastered teleportation and portal making. While most of his former ghostly rogues knew of Ellie, the only humans that knew of her were members of his fright and Valerie.
At the time, spitballing ideas about the members of the bat clan in Gotham was just all fun and games, a way to practice the knowledge they were learning in a more practical and entertaining way than just bookwork. Now, though, Danny couldn't be more grateful they had spent so much time on those debates, countless nights they stayed up late trawling through the deep web to stay up to date on the latest on Gotham's guardian deity and his clan. Because they had such solid guesses on what beings made up the bat clan, they'd be able to appeal for sanctuary in a more appropriate manner than if they had no clue at all.
As his and Jazz's bus drew closer to Gotham on the horizon, Danny anxiously checked that the duffle with their offerings was still secured. He hoped the bats liked their gifts; they had barely any concrete info on any of the more public members, let alone the lesser known ones. He wasn't sure what they'd do if Batman refused their appeal; with the schematics to rebuild the Fenton portal within easy access of the GIW, they couldn't risk hiding out in the Infinite Realms for fear of drawing Danny's subjects into a fruitless war.
Please, he prayed to Gotham's guardian deity, please don't turn us away. You're our last hope.
=============‹«⟨·•★•·⟩»›=============
As Bruce was getting ready for patrol that night, he felt the creeping rise of anticipation. Something was going to happen tonight, something extraordinary. He just wasn't sure if it was going to be a good thing or not. Like usual.
For the past year and a half, Bruce had noticed an odd trend. Whenever something big was going to happen, something that would affect the entirety of his city, he'd feel antsy all day, right up until whatever was going to happen happened. It certainly helped cut down on the number of times they'd been caught with their metaphorical pants around their knees, but not being able to tell if the nebulous something was going to be good or not was annoying. Though, to be fair, there weren't a lot of good things that had happened since he started noticing his new sense.
"Listen up," he sighed as he stalked over to the conference table in the cave. "Something's going to happen tonight, something big. As usual, that's all the information I have, so you know the drill; if you see anything unusual, call it in." Bruce looked over his brood of children, most of them adults in their own right by now. Goodness, the years have flown by fast. "Try to stick relatively close to each other tonight, please. I want to be able to watch each other's backs in case whatever it is manages to get the drop on us."
Dick nodded with a grin. "You got it, B," he said, slinging an arm over Damian's shoulder. "C'mon, baby bird, let's run through our stretches one last time before heading out, yeah?"
"Tt, it is Todd who needs those stretches most, was he not the one to strain his knee last week?"
"You listen here, you little—"
"He's not wrong, Jay. You sure you don't want my stretch routine? It'd do you wonders, y'know."
"You mean your torture routine, Replacement? How you can get your body into some of those shapes and still call it stretching, I'll never know—"
Bruce shook his head, a small smile playing at his lips. He wasn't quite sure when that change had happened, but he'd be forever grateful it had. It pained him when his sons fought each other.
A small hand came to rest on his shoulder, drawing him out of his thoughts. He glanced down at his daughter and smiled at her look of concern. "I'm alright," he reassured her, "just thinking."
Cass looked at him thoughtfully before nodding. "It will be alright. Tonight will be good. We will stay safe. You stay safe, too?"
Bruce was nodding before she finished speaking. "Of course. We should head out, any longer and Stephanie will try banshee striking the first shady person she sees," he said, an amused glint in his eye as Steph cried out in indignation from over by the batmobile.
An hour into patrol, and Bruce's anticipation skyrocketed. Whatever was happening tonight was happening soon. "Everyone, check-in."
"Raven here, checking in, all clear here." Dick.
"This is Condor, everything's normal on my end." Jason.
"Robin, checking in, nothing is out of place." Damian.
"Starling here! Just some run-of-the-mill muggers, currently crying for daddy!" Steph.
"Black Bat. Clear." Cass.
Where's—? "Ibis here. B, I think I found the source of your feeling. Sending Oracle my coordinates now." Tim.
"Understood. En route now. Do not engage without backup, understood?" Bruce demanded, taking off toward the beacon indicating Tim's location.
"I'll try, B, but I get the impression they know I'm here."
The anticipation rose again. Whoever Tim was watching definitely knew he was there. "We'll hurry."
=============‹«⟨·•★•·⟩»›=============
Tim clung to the gargoyle overlooking one of the many rooftop shrines to the Bats and the Birds. There, sitting cross-legged about a foot in the air next to the shrine, was a glowing teenaged boy with snow bright hair and Lazarus Pit green eyes. He was wearing a black and silver armored suit, similar to the suits he and his siblings wore, with a flowing cape that blended into the night hung from his shoulders and a greenish black crown floating just above his head. In his lap was a black, gray, and green duffle bag that looked to be rather full, and in his hand was a beat up looking photograph. He couldn't make out what it was a photo of from this angle, but he'd recognize a well-loved photograph anywhere.
"In position, IIbis, you may initiate contact." Bruce said over comms. Tim didn't bother acknowledging he heard and instead carefully unwound himself from his hiding place in the shadows. Carefully, he danced down the side of the building he was on, contorting himself into inhuman looking positions as he went, until he could silently drop onto the roof with the shrine. He slowly slunk forward, keeping low and accentuating his curiosity. That was the key, here, he really was curious about this kid. That was what sold IIbis as something other, something not human.
Tim was about five feet from the shrine when wide, glowing green eyes suddenly found his own, covered though they might be. Tim froze, holding the slightly exaggerated pose he'd found himself in, crouched and arched in a way that screamed wary curiosity. Cautiously, he rolled his head to the side and chirped slightly.
"You really do exist," the kid breathed in awe before he shook himself and straightened, grabbing the duffle from his lap before letting his feet meet the rooftop. "Hi, um, I was wondering if I could possibly meet with your clan leader, Batman?"
Tim stared at the kid for a long moment as Bruce silently made his way to the shadows of the shrine. At Bruce's signal, a soft tap on the comm, Tim shifted and rolled and contorted until he was standing in a much more human-like fashion, then purposefully turned only his head to look directly where Bruce's beacon said he was. The kid whipped his head around right as Bruce seemingly melted out of the shadows, his size and sheer presence seemingly dwarfing the kid, who sucked in a surprised breath but barely moved an inch. Impressive.
"Yes?" Bruce growled softly, not the unpleasant, gravelly growl reserved for criminals, but the warm, gentle rumble reserved for kids and victims.
The kid's awe only grew more pronounced, but somehow he still managed to pull himself together enough to speak. "H-hi, my name's Phantom, I'm not sure if you've heard of me or not. I'd like to ask for sanctuary for myself and my fright-mates. Our previous haunt has become rather hostile towards us, and I'm not strong enough to keep them safe. Um, I've got some gifts for you and your clan, I wasn't sure how large your clan was, so I'm sorry if I offend you or anything with the lack of gifts for everyone. M-may I pull them out?" He asked, lifting the duffle slightly to indicate what he meant.
Bruce was silent as he waited for the rest of the bats and birds to form a loose circle around Phantom, stances mostly non-threatening, and stepped forward into the glow coming from the kid. At this point, the kid's awe was nearly palpable, glancing at as many of them as he could but always facing Bruce and not moving more than his eyes.
After a further moment, Bruce tilted his head slightly and nodded, causing the kid to outright beam.
"Right! Well, first, for yourself, I have a set of ghost steel batarangs, enchanted to return to their case once they leave a hundred yard radius. They're tied specifically to the case, so you can lend them to someone else, but it's recommended you be the only one to use them for the first ten uses in live combat. Next, for Black Bat, a cloak made by the best undead tailors this side of eternity. Made from the shadows themselves, whoever wears it becomes functionally invisible in low light conditions and beyond. I was also told it grants slight shadow manipulation, as well. For Robin, a shape shifting sword from the fey realms themselves, fitting for a changeling child. All curses and tricks were totally removed, as we weren't certain you wouldn't share it with some of your clan mates, and we didn't want to accidently cause any problems that could have been averted—" Phantom kept going, pulling something from the bag, naming who it was for, and explaining a little about it, before putting it back in the bag and moving on. But what drew Tim's attention, time and time again, was the fact that Phantom seemed to be under the impression they were actually members of the supernatural—he all but called Tim a kitsune, and definitely implied Damian was a changeling! It was both amusing the kid honestly thought they were members of the supernatural, and rather concerning at the same time. They were all human, weren't they? They were method acting every time they suited up, heck, Tim was nothing more than a self trained contortionist that could mimic a few bird calls and knew a bit of self defense. Why did this kid, who was possibly an actual ghost, think they were supernaturally inclined? Were they really that good at method acting? Or was there something more to it than that?
=============‹«⟨·•★•·⟩»›=============
Hey, guys! I literally stayed up working on this until midnight, so already in pushing my self proclaimed boundaries (⁠;⁠^⁠ω⁠^⁠)I had so much help from my friends on the @batpham-discord-highlights discord server, I'll look into tagging everyone that helped in the morning when I'm not struggling to stay awake (⁠´⁠-⁠﹏⁠-⁠`⁠;⁠) I hope you enjoyed this long fic, guys, cuz I was NOT expecting to write 3,266 words today! Good night, good morning, good day!
1K notes · View notes
audhd-nightwing · 1 month
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media
some stuff for my cryptid!batfam au
74 notes · View notes
the-autistic-spider · 1 month
Text
could people reccomend some dc fics please
i recently read a fic where batman had wings that he made where everyone thought he was a meta
also a cryptid batman
so if you could recommend some please =]
also remember reblog website
62 notes · View notes
Text
So the fic "Superman and his pal, the shadow demon" has me by the balls.
So here's a sketch dump
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Here's the fic by i_go_by_faith @pinkhamsterarts
Part two: Hatchlings
Part three : Taser
1K notes · View notes
faeriekit · 8 months
Text
Health and Hybrids (IX)👽👻💚
[I can't remember the original prompt posters  for the life of me but here's a mashup between a cryptid!Danny, presumed-alien!Danny, dp x dc, and whatever prompt made the one body horror meat grinder fic.]
PART ONE is here PART TWOis here PART THREEis here PART FOUR is here and PART FIVE is here PART SIX is here and PART SEVEN is here PART EIGHT is here and this is part nine 💚 Ao3 Is here for all parts
Where we last left off... Wonder Woman has secured the coveted position as The Only Reliable Adult in the sore eyes of an injured half-ghost. World's saddest presumed-alien takes his meds on purpose for once. The author wrestles with Roman numerals.
Trigger warnings for this story:  body horror | gore | post-dissection fic | dehumanization (probably) |  my awful attempts at following DC canon. On with the show.
💚👻👽👻💚
Danny is not in the container.
He very much doesn’t like the container.
The new lady and all the milling-about humans and his quickfast human have, however, encouraged him back to this room that looks just like the container's room, with one key difference. This one has a bathtub.
Danny touches the water.
It is too hot.
Danny does not want to go into the bathtub.
No one…no one is making him go in the bathtub. But everyone is gesturing, and making encouraging noises, and it makes Danny shrink into the sparse shadows of a partially-lit room, too afraid to get near the water, and too unhappy to cooperate.
It’s too hot. It smells funny in the way that cough drops and antiseptic tastes funny so it’s probably good for him, but Danny’s not a person and the water is too hot for him to put his core into.
The youngest human is so sad that it reverberates throughout the room, moaning and groaning and toying with Danny’s pull-toy fidget, which Danny is kindly letting it keep. It is laying on the floor. Danny does not have any feet for it to trip over right now, but Danny is hovering above it, so no one with a flesh body falls and hurts something when they trip.
Breaking bones hurts. Danny would know.
The new human lady tries to encourage Danny with his rocket ship. It doesn’t work. The bath is too hot even with the rocket ship in it. Danny wishes there was something he could use to change the temperature.
…He reaches over the side of the tub. Danny swishes a finger around in the water.
Nope. Still too hot.
Okay. Danny needs… Something. He needs. Something.
He quietly removes himself from the most familiar human and just…floats around the room. It is mostly bare. There is space for lots of humans to work with lots of technology to make things happen, but the room is mostly empty right now, except that it has a whole bunch of humans and Danny in it.
There isn’t anything helpful in this room. Danny goes to the next room.
(The new human lady follows behind.)
The next room has…the container. Danny hisses when he sees it.
No one does anything.
…Okay. Danny slides further into the room. No one is making him go in. Okay. He can…explore.
There are other things in the room. Danny can’t tell what all of them are, so he just starts opening things. He finds stuff made of wood and cotton. He rips something small in half, and a bandage falls out. He sticks a wet wipe in his mouth before he realizes it’s a wet wipe—that one drops out of his mouth and onto the floor. It tastes so bad.
The human makes a sad noise that might be a laugh too, but Danny can’t interpret now. He’s on a mission. He has more important tasks to finish.
There are more rooms with more things and Danny keeps looking. He finds towels and medical robes in cabinets and machines that do things that Danny can’t tell and tubes of all sorts and packages of medication Danny can’t eat. He keeps opening doors and looking inside and closing them because none of them help.
…There’s some white packets inside of clear plastic wrap. Danny can’t tell what they are. Is this something that he can use? Will it help?
Danny flexes his comeherelookitthis aura with a curl of his tail, and the human buzzes to attention in Danny’s current room.
Danny hands him the pouch.
The human does something to it. The crinkly-shiny wrapper falls to the floor. The human makes a noise, the packet creaks ominously, and the human holds out its hands so that Danny can take the packet back.
He takes it back.
Danny immediately drops the packet back to the floor because it’s hot!!!! Ugh!!!! If he had known that the package was one of the hot packets, he wouldn’t have bothered!
He floats elsewhere into the room, sulking. He opens more cabinets and doesn’t close them after. He—
Wait.
—Danny feels out with a hand. It’s…cold inside.
Danny shoves his face into the cabinet. There’s no food, just little vials, but yes! Cold! He shoves a hand inside and roots around, even though he is also trying not to crush or break the little vials. The white-coated humans don’t get close or try to get him, but they do make sad noises. Danny hummmmms an apology. But—
Out of the fridge comes squishy packs. There is nothing in them but squishy wet material. They are only cold.
Perfect!
Danny grabs as many as he can with his hands and one in his teeth and his teeth tear through the plastic a little and he kind of tastes the goo inside (gross!), but he has armfuls of cold packs and they are all very good at being cold packs.
The buzzing human comes back to find him and laugh, laugh, laugh all the way through the soft layers of the universe, but Danny doesn’t care, and also he needs it to show Danny where the bathtub is again so he can go sit in the gross medicine water. He might be a little lost.
Thankfully, once Danny stops moving and just stands around, it does. Great!
The lady is still there with the rest of the humans. Whatever. Danny spits the cold pack in his mouth into the bathtub and medicine water probably goes everywhere, but he can’t tell and doesn’t care. The rest of his pile he dunks into the tub by himself.
Now. Danny sticks an arm in the water.
It’s…better. Not so warm. Danny could probably tolerate it now. He doesn’t want to, sure, but he’s also covered in his own waste products and hasn’t cleaned anything in ages and ages and who knows how long. So probably washing out his insides in uncomfortably warm water and a little bit of cold pack medium is better than, uh…not doing that.
Danny slides carefully into the bathtub. Gross. The water is gross. Also it smells bad. Wait. Could he smell before?
He sniffs again. His hands slide through the water, and Danny has to work not to make himself intangible so that he doesn’t get wet. Getting wet is the point right now. He brings one of the cold packs a little bit closer to his body, the cool water radiating from it, and gently splashes water onto his abdomen.
Danny can’t exactly tell where and how he’s injured, and this form hides his wounds even from himself. Still, he remembers…he remembers most of the bad things. Being pinned down. The restraint bruises.
The bright lights.
The…scalpels…
When the human lady is suddenly at his side again, Danny flinches back into invisibility. She doesn’t yell at him for disappearing, or pull out a weapon to punish him.
She has ice packs in her soft flesh hands. One by one, without looking where Danny is hiding in thin air, she drops them into the bath, cooling it further.
…Danny quietly slithers back out of the shadows. The woman makes a quiet noise, and then she leaves the side of the tub.
He doesn’t know how to respond. He continues to wash himself by gently splashing water on his torso. There’s organs under there he’s gotta clean. Probably. If not, he ought to wash anyway.
Huh. There’s no soap here. Can he get soap? Maybe the weird water is supposed to be the soap. Bathwater doesn’t exactly lather, though.
Whatever. Danny washes everything from his sore scalp to his largely-nonexistent toes/tail. The water turns a filthy, corroded black-brown. Danny doesn’t even ask if the white-coated humans want anything to do with the water; he doesn’t want to see them, and this is nasty. 
He pulls the stopper out. The water goes down. Danny watches it drain.
…Okay. So. They’re on the moon. Where does his gross water go? Danny hopes they don’t recycle it. A base full of mostly-humans probably doesn’t know how to filter ectoplasm out of the water supply. Or, depending on what they know or don’t know, they might not even know they have to.
Do they know what Danny is?
Danny hopes they don’t. Maybe they would give him back to the lab if they did.
…He doesn’t want to think about that. He wants another bath. Danny fusses with the taps by the bathtub long enough that the human lady comes back, with her fully articulated fingers that can grasp and twist and pull.
This time Danny gets cold water, which he likes. He doesn’t like that she’s so close, but he appreciates the help. The tub fills, and Danny washes again, and the lady comes back with a very soft towel that Danny wants to add to his bedding.
Danny definitely pushes the towel through his body a few times. It’s mostly to get the most water off of his body as possible, even though the human woman keeps her attention on him as he does.
He doesn’t relinquish the wet towel.
The woman holds her hands out for it.
…Danny scoots a little further back. It’s a nice towel. He wants it on his cot so that the sheets don’t absorb as much waste ‘n blood ‘n stuff.
One of the other humans in white walks forward, and Danny pushes himself as far back as he can go. It ignores him. It hands a second towel to the human lady with the red colors, and walks away.
The human lady turns back to Danny. She holds out her hand and a fresh towel, not suffused with contaminated medicine water.
…Kay. Danny can do Tradesies.
Danny gets a new towel, is nice and dry, and roams invisibly back to his cot.
The sheets are all nice and new when he gets there. The humming human’s little friends are all there, chatting and toying with Danny’s stuff. Hey!
He makes the head and his chest sticking through the ceiling visible to human eyes, and he hisses. They scatter quickly. It’s a little funny—he’s not actually mad at them, but they can’t tell, since they can’t hear the little tones in his core. Danny drops to float over his cot, lays down the towel, wraps himself in it, and puts his things back into his bed.
It’s kind of like having a grave. It’s nice and cozy.
When the small humans poke their heads out from behind the curtain again, Danny purrs so that they know he’s laughing at them.
If they fuss, that’s their fault. Danny pulls his rocket ship into his pillows, finds a stretch toy that’s easy to chew on, and eases himself onto his cot for a nap.
370 notes · View notes