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Like, obviously he’s friends with Sam and Tucker without fighting them, but that’s just lasting affection from before his death. And yeah, his sister is Jazz, but she’s always been his sister, so there’s no change. But he fought Val. He bonded with Val the ghost way.

Gimme, post-Nasty Burger explosion or post-Bad Parents Fenton, Danny struggling to be in the Wayne family. Not because they’re obviously hiding something, or because they’re workaholics that… don’t seem to have jobs? No, his issue is that he doesn’t know how to interact with them.

Like, sure, Dick is always stating how excited he is that he’s got a new brother, but Danny just doesn’t feel it. Not like Danny feels it’s a betrayal to Jazz, but like Dick just seems distant. Yeah, Dick is very… huggy, let’s just say, and he’s constantly coming to Gotham to have “brotherly bonding” time with Danny and Dick does everything that Danny had ever imagined a big brother might do for him… but.

And of course Jason is there, he’s helping Danny with his English and Reading homework, he’s joking with Danny in the way that no one else is, he’s driving Danny from place to place, Jason is just… present, but.

And Tim, can’t forget Tim, Tim tinkers with projects with Danny and plays games with Danny and-

And Damian- Duke, Bruce, even Alfred!

But. But! Danny feels like an outsider looking in as he’s doing these activities with the Wayne’s. Not in a way of feeling like he’s inconveniencing these busy and important people, but in that he’s just hanging around with work friends he can barely remember the names of and definitely doesn’t have the phone numbers of (but he does, he has their phone numbers, he knows their names, he knows their favorite colors- what is wrong with him??)

And then it clicks, when he has to fight a misunderstanding Batman off. Because now Batman is his… friend? Dad? Now Batman is his something but why can’t he feel that way about Bruce?

And then he fights Nightwing in a panic and Nightwing becomes his… something. And it’s replicable. He fights every one of the Bats over a misunderstanding or because of some outside influence and they become his family even though he wanted this feeling with the Wayne’s and he doesn’t know what to do and it hurts that he doesn’t have this feeling with the Wayne’s and it almost feels like a betrayal to their efforts and-

Date Posted: July 23, 2026

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The term “zombie” is both a technical term, referring to a family, and a common name, referring to a genus.

The family Zombie is a broad, overarching group that includes the genus that many people call zombie (Ghoulus, not to be confused with Ghouli, the unrelated genus of the Ghala family which also includes bogeymen and some ghosts*) as well as the Mummy genus (Pyrima), the spore-zombie genus (Fungan) and a few others.

The colloquial term “Zombie” is the common term for the genus Ghoulus, which is in the family Zombie and includes Ghoulus romero (the walking zombie), Ghoulus snydera (the running zombie), and Ghoulus smithi (the vampiric zombie, also called the legendary zombie).

Interestingly, there are several things called “zombies” that are neither Ghoulus nor Zombie, including the dancing zombie (Jacksoni thrillera), which is more closely related to (although not currently actually in the same family as) clowns.

*Note: the ghosts in the Ghala family are not true ghosts. True ghosts are in the order Spectere, which is entirely unrelated to Ghouli, Ghoulus, Pyrima, and Fungan. Ghala “ghosts” are given the common name ghost because of their superficial similarity to true ghosts.

the closest to a domesticated ghost we have is the house ghost, Phantome domus (sometimes classified as a distinct subspecies Phantome domus domesticus).

P. domus is interesting because it’s like housecats – they are technically domesticated (scans have shown that the fight-or-flight response, like in domesticated animals, is weaker in P. domus than in related species like P. majestica, the manor ghost, or P. more, the cemetary ghost), but evidence suggests that it’s a naturalistic co-evolution rather than an intentional domestication process like with sheep or dogs.

Dick doesn't like Damian's new cat, or everyone thinks it's a cat, at least. It's kinda big for the size of a regular house cat, and it's whole body is like a weird trippy illusion; black with blue eyes one moment, white with green the next.

Damian claims he just picked it up off the street, and he's overall utterly unperturbed with the cat. According to him the thing was probably some sort of escaped lab experiment, and he is determined to figure out who was testing so inhumanely on animals. May God have mercy on their souls when that boy reaches them.

No one in the family quite likes the cat, except Damian, obviously.

The animal just has a way of sneaking into where it's not supposed to. It's always watching. Always just around the corner. Always at the exact place you don't want it to be at that exact moment.

Tim in particular is very annoyed by the cat. He likes to sit on Tim's paperwork, press buttons on his computer, and stick his face in Tim's coffee. The cat actively makes Tim's life harder whenever it gets the chance. Damian finds this to be the best form of comedy, because he is a little menace(lovingly).

Dick thinks he has it the worst with the cat overall though. Why? Because no one believes him about this stupid animal. Sure, they all agree that the cat is fucking weird, at the very least it's more sapient than a cat should be, but that's as far as they take it.

Not Dick.

Dick managed to sneak up on it once, and only once, and has never even attempted again. He just wanted to get back at the creature after it spent all day tripping him as he walked down the halls. It was harmless! Honestly, he just expected the cat to jump, maybe hiss, and skitter away for the rest of the day.

Instead the cat whirled around and opened its jaw so wide Dick swears its chin began to grace the floor, and then glowing green tentacles came out! They latched around his arms, covered his nose and mouth, and began to pull him into the tooth filled abyss of its jaws.

He felt the life in him leave before he was even half way pulled in. The fight slowly began to drain out of him, and the room was getting so so cold. Dick really thought this was how he was going to die, via his baby brother's freaky ass cat.

And then Damian's voice rang out, sharp and firm, simply calling the name of his cat lovingly dubbed "Phantom". The name Dick gave him, actually, because the cat travelled around the house like a ghost. Damian is the one who decided the name ghost was too childish, and thus, Phantom came about.

Damian arrived to him laying on the floor, Phantom on top of his chest purring away, as if the thing didn't try to consume him mere moments ago.

"Lying on the floor is quite unbecoming of you, Richard. However, since you are bonding with Phantom, I will let it slide."

And then Damian picked up the cat, tucked it into his chest, and walked back to where he came from.

When talking to Damian about the event later, he just looked at him like he was stupid. Tim said the cameras had shorted out (something that had been happening a lot recently), and he had no clue what Dick was talking about. Bruce and Alfred both advised him to seek mental help, believing him to be stress hallucinating. He didn't even bother telling the others.

So yeah, Dick doesn't like Damian's cat monster. He doesn't want to hurt his baby brother's feelings, but it can't stay.

Maybe he's helping Danny hide out while the GIW is being taken down? Maybe Danny is stuck in cat form until he heals from wounds of some sort?

The point is that Damian is fully aware of what Danny is. They're playing a game of 'exactly how unhinged can my cat become before they call an exorcist' and having the time of their lives.

-> Phonics For Adults <-

AKA "inspired by that one post about Danny being a flerken and living with the Batfam" idea! Except he looks pants-shitting, "oh dear god, what is that" terrifying.

I just love slightly feral animal-like Danny in a... shape. It's not immediately identifiable as a cat or dog, maybe he has a few too many legs that kind of look like a tail at one point? And when he skitters up walls like a particularly small dog-sized tarantula, it's terrifying enough to make seasoned criminals squeal.

Let's imagine Danny had some sort of accident with a portal and was Wizard-of-Oz'd into Gotham, a literal hellmouth of a city with so many curses that it'd make John Constantine start to sweat. And this city also has... weird Ecto. (In my brain, there's a connection between the Lazarus Pit and ectoplasm, like pit waters are the sewers of ectoplasm or something.) It's enough for Danny to still exist but he can't seem to stay human-shaped. It's better than being a Blob Ghost, but not by much. His fur-scales-feathers-skin-something look dark as the midnight sky.

And who should stumble on this weird-looking Thing aside from Damian, secret animal-whisperer and passionate Pokemon collector? Damian, who known what a scared feral animal looks like and who can coax it into his arms? It doesn't matter that Danny has maybe five or six limbs. He can make himself slightly smaller at will (not in a Magical-Girl-Transformation way, mind you. When he changes shape, there's the distinct snap of bones breaking and wet, fleshy sounds of his organs, muscles, ligaments, tendons, everything shifting).

Damian has literally been trained by the League of Assassins under the Demon Head. He's likely seen more people's insides than an ER surgeon; he's killed more than enough people in incredibly grotesque and violent ways to be totally unphased by Danny changing shapes. Maybe he'll actually be sort of touched, a bit pleased, that his new Thing pet would change itself so violently so Damian could hold it.

What would Damian name it? He's outwardly violent and aggressive towards others, but pretty passionate and heartfelt once he cares for someone. Alfred the Cat comes to mind. So maybe Damian takes one look at this supposedly scary Thing and thinks, "It looks like Father."

As in, Dark as Night? A shadow inspiring fear amongst criminals? Spoken about in whispers, sometimes laughed off as a joke but still cautiously reverent, just in case?

Danny's new name is Batman.

Of course, this causes some confusion when Damian comes home to Wayne Manor and says, "Batman and I will retire to my room." In front of Bruce, who naturally and kind-of-correctly assumes his son picked up another animal while on patrol. Bruce had a hard time explaining this to a very concerned Dick, who was holding up a wooden stake and a bible (Dick totally wasn't going to kill Bruce if he turned out to be a vampire but it's always good to be prepared!), after Damian apparently made a wayward comment that "Batman refuses to eat anything besides raw meat."

And Danny is having a great time!! Sure, Damian treats him like a pet, but he gets affectionate pats on the head, incredibly expensive steak, and a soft place to sleep. He awkwardly dragged several blankets from the living room to Damian's room to make a bed in the kid's closet. (Alfred watched from behind the couch as this six-legged hairy-ish catlike Thing determinedly waddled with three blankets in its mouth, occasionally tripping on its own legs. He went back to dusting the crown moulding silently. So, that's why Master Damian requested uncooked sirloin steak twelve times in last few days. Hm.)

So, the Batfam accept there is another Batman in the family. Except they haven't actually seen Danny (aside from Alfred and Damian).

Until Dick needs to talk to Damian and goes into the boy's room. But it's empty?? He could've sworn he heard somebody talking or something in here, but maybe not? He turns to leave and then hears it again: a soft kind of thump coming from Damian's armoire. A shit-eating grin spreads across his face as his Older Brother Instincts kick in. Jason used to hide in closets and try to scare Dick when he was little; Damian, despite being a child soldier and trained assassin, was still a little kid at heart, right? The kid's clearly hiding from Dick to scare him or something.

(Damian was in the Batcave, studiously typing "Google, what non-Earth animals reside in Gotham, please?" into the Batcomputer. I like to think that Damian uses the internet like a 85-year old man who thinks a Google employee personally replies to each question.)

So, Dick creeps forward and abruptly slams open the armoire doors!! Only to let out an unholy shriek of terror as Danny, who was taking a nap, frantically skitters out of the closet looking like a Frankenstein cat-dog with bat wings. He crawls under Damian's bed as Dick scrambles into the hallway.

The cat-dog-Thing is out of the bag now. Damian looks utterly deadpan as he explains that Batman is his pet and not to concern themselves with it; Bruce, Tim, Jason, and a white-faced Dick disagreed. They need to see it to make sure the Thing won't harm anybody, especially considering it's fucking living with them!! How do they know it won't try to eat them in their sleep??

"Batman does not eat raw human meat, Todd. Why are you concerned now? It has resided with us for two months now."

"Two months?" Dick nearly faints (again).

"Yes, Batman is very well-behaved, Master Dick." Alfred, who's been feeding Danny for the last two months and has seen all the little quirks the Thing has, offers a consoling half-smile.

he bounces around from universe to universe making graves for the dead and putting them to rest. hes not king in this, he just knows how it feels to be without a place to put his bones

danny, of course, carries his own with him, so he is, essentially, his own grave, and its... unsettling. gives him the ghost version of adhd, makes it impossible to take 'settle down.'

and he could technically solve that with a headstone but... well. graves are supposed to be made FOR you. even if youre paying someone or the government is putting you in an incinerator or whatever else is arranged by your family, its supposed to be a mark of affection, of belonging.

Danny died but nobody noticed. Danny left home and nobody cared. Danny left the UNIVERSE, and nobody looked for him.

they call, yeah, and theyre all friends still, but some part of danny feels so distant. he loves his family. he loves his friends. but sometimes he cant help but wonder how much easier their lives are without him. how much safer. if they ever think back on their wild high school years and feel relief that hes not around to mess things up anymore.

so he keeps moving, long beyond the time it starts to feel like running.

and he carves and carves and carves

An Angela here, a Jeoffery there. A Dua and a Haoyu and a Peter. A Zitkala and an Assol and an Ahsan. A Kleio and a Fabian and a Bluebell and so many more he can't remember them all.

It takes longer than he wishes it had for him to start writing their names down in a little book he tucks close to his heart.

He goes to mass graves that makes his stomach roll and his ears ring from how many voices cry out to him, and spends weeks carving name after name into rocks he digs up and places like sentinels around every sliver of bone.

He goes to cities and engraves plaques and nails them to brick walls.

He finds himself in ruins and plains and icy cracks and the bottom of the sea.

His markers won't last forever, he knows. But they don't need to. The dead are, in many ways, similar to the living. They want to be heard, known, cherished. It doesn't matter if it's for a lifetime or a moment.

Danny can give them that moment. For many, it's enough to settle their clamoring and usher them gently on. So Danny keeps doing it, because it feels good, offering people this measure of peace. It feels good, to help without fighting.

eventually, he makes his way to a city called Gotham. He finds many, many unknown dead there. Restless dead. Violent dead.