Lil' Bit of Everthing I Guess

Tory Adkinson, Anecdote of the Pig/Minecraft/Diane di Prima/tweet by Rebecca Solnit/tumblr user @matyrsuggestion /Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum/Rob Cantor, I'm Gonna Win/Unknown/C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed/tumblr user @fridayiminlovemp3

batfam dungeon crawler carl au, but it’s w non Batman ‘Brucie’ Wayne and his vigilante kids

the kids are all out on patrol when the initial collapse occurs, and Bruce is drunkenly stumbling around outside after a party on his way to call a car to get home

on the first floor, everyone is kind of divided. Dick is w Damian, Jason is w Tim, Cass is w Stephanie, and Babs is w Duke (Barbara wanted some fresh air and Duke was procrastinating studying so he was keeping her company). Bruce is entirely alone

It becomes a mad dash to survive the dungeon whilst also trying to find Bruce because their poor father is not going to survive on his own, not the way they all can w their training and talents. But what they don’t know is that Bruce has been fully aware of their nighttime proclivities, was always keeping watch over them whilst also staying out of their way, and isn’t nearly as stupid as the Gotham public assumed him to be. Bruce has got all the training of Batman without actually being Batman, and he’s making an absolute MESS of the dungeon in an attempt to find his kids

it’s not until they’ve reached the third floor that Bruce shows up on the recap. Dick and Damian have managed to find Steph and Cass, and Jason and Tim have found Barbara and Duke. In their separate safe rooms, they watch the recap, and…there he is. Bruce is on the screen, covered in the gore and blood of what almost looks like hundreds of dead mobs. There’s a katana wielded in one hand and several guns holstered on him

“Where the FUCK ARE MY KIDS?!” is the only line of dialogue they get before the recap moves on to something else. Both sets of kids stare up the screen in profound confusion

—

Steph, “What the fuck?”

Dick, “Was that-?”

Cass, “B? Yes.”

Damian, “Was father using…a gun?”

Cass, again, “Yes.”

—

Tim, “uh…”

Jason, “Holy shit.”

Duke, “That…has to be fake, right?”

Barbara, “I…don’t think it is.”

—

Bruce eventually does reunite w his children. Both groups find each other on the third floor, and on the fourth, they’re able to locate Bruce. From a distance, he looks mean and pissed off, and Jason whistles when he shoots two mobs straight in the head without an ounce of hesitation. And that gets Bruce’s attention. He swings around so fast, Tim thinks he’s going to shoot first and ask questions later

but he doesn’t. Instead, he lowers his gun and grins. It’s so…Bruce. The Bruce they remember, not the one they’ve seen several times on the recap episodes who looks so absolutely feral and unhinged. He charges at them and somehow manages to gather them all into a group hug, kissing the tops of their heads before checking them for any injuries

Bruce, “My babies! You’re okay!”

Steph, “One, not your kid. Two, what the HELL, BOSS MAN?”

Barbara, “Also not your kid, but what on earth is going on, Bruce? You- we saw you! You can fight?!”

Jason, “And shoot.”

Bruce, pouting, “I had no other choice.”

Dick, “No. Nuh uh. You’ve clearly been hiding shit from us, and we’re gonna talk about it.”

Bruce, “You want to talk about keeping secrets? Well-“

and he cuts himself off to shoot a mob that’s trying to sneak up on them

Bruce, “I’m not the one who sneaks around at night in spandex to fight crime.”

All of the kids, “YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT?”

Bruce, rolling his eyes, “I’m your father. Of course I know.”

NEVER GIVE UP even though most people see their ships on this piece because the characters faces arent visible, this artwork sent SO MANY people looking for who the characters were, reading my comics, sending me asks, and falling in love with Sully and Caro just like me. It's been an amazing ride. DO IT! Post your ocs!

SIDDIG: A lot of gay men at that time, and maybe even gay women, kinda responded to the Bashir character. I think that was because of (Garashir), and maybe the bravery of not only that, but also an implicitly Muslim character being potentially gay, potentially bi, potentially gay if they’d explored that route. That is something Garak brought with him to the party, a bottle of implied homosexuality…

LLOYD [interviewer]: So were you aware in the 90s that it was homoerotically charged and on board with that? SIDDIG: I was aware of it in the back of my mind, yes, absolutely, and encouraged it. At my first meeting with Garak I became visibly flustered. That was entirely my choice. It wasn’t written into the script. So I set off in that direction right from the get-go. And Andy (Andrew Robinson) obviously loved it, and that character became a series-long character because of that first scene…

me: i would just give it to you.

my dad:

anyway, some kid who didn't buy insurance got hit with a "medical bill" early on, so he was supposed to be bankrupt and have to sit the rest of the game out. the 8 year olds were not having it and spontaneously invented crowdfunding so he could keep playing with everyone else.

Rather, I just want to acknowledge how well that theme - will you acknowledge the exploitation or will you look away to preserve what benefits you - is woven through so many parts of Cloho, on so many levels.

Comfrey MacLeod is a Hero! ...just so long as she keeps running and never looks back at the messes she leaves behind.

The Gotch family (being aristocrats - landed gentry are by definition landlords) live a charmed life of wealth an privildge ...just so long as they don't acknowledge the human suffering of lower class Gathie required to pay for it.

Zood is Utopian ...just so long as Zern suffers and dies for it.

And here also we see the metal of many of our intrepid heroes:

Marya could have continued on as a famed adventurer, if she had been willing to forget that Ludmila was suffering. But she refused to forget. (She didn't handle remembering well, but she refused to forget.)

Monty could be living a life of luxury and indolensce off his books without a care in the world, if he chose to forget about the natural world he was trying to protect. Instead every party is a battle where he fights for the soul of his world.

Maxwell could do as most of his family did and ignore the real suffering in the name of their bottom line, but he chooses to be a class traitor instead.

The in universe fan reaction to Olethra and Maxwell when Monty publishes his new book, though? (I'm assuming Ludmila was briefly in some of the near the end books/that Marya met her and brought her in before going solo and is therefore a returning extremely minor character upgraded to major player, not a new character to the readers.)

Like.

There's probably people of Maxwell's generation going "oh, look, he's made up descendants for a new generation of adventurers, [how trite/wonder why he picked MacLeod and Gotch ...Cadswitch Gotch was never more than a minor character, why one of his?]". (These people did not read the news.)

There would be readers for whom each of them is the new favourite. Readers who hate them and wish they hadn't been included.

The actual kids reading the books would probably think it's super cool - tag along kid characters exist for a reason and that reason is to let real kids feel like they could be part of the adventure, so Maxwell and Olethra would fill that role.

Imagining Olethra's and Maxwell's reactions the first time a little kid wanders up starry eyed and is like "You're [name] from Hazardous Happenings! You're my favourite character!"

something about how rowdiness is something uncouth, of the lower classes, to be avoided by the Nice Well-To-Do Young Men of Gath. something expected of someone like Van, so she has never seen need not to embrace it. something about how Gotches Stay On The Ground, (never get their hands dirty) about how the first word another character used to describe Maxwell was "obedient"

something about how "-well" is a family naming convention, how in the ring he is "the max", no well, no gotch, just him stripped of the ways in which his family seeks to define him.

who are you when you are most yourself?

does it scare you? should it?

something about satin over bruised knuckles. something about taking it off.