Yes, But He Hid Behind A Mask. In A Safer (or Just Less Corrupt) City, He Wouldn't Need To Hide His Identity.

Random linguistic worldbuilding: A language with six sets of pronouns, which are set by one's current state of existence. There's a separate pronoun for people who are alive, people who are dead, and potential future people who are yet to be born, and the ambiguous ones of "may or may not be alive or aleady dead", "may or may not have even been born yet", and the ultimate general/ambiguous all-covering one that covers all ambiguous states.

The culture has a specific defined term for that tragic span of time when a widow keeps accidentally referring to their spouse with living pronouns. New parents-to-be dropping the happy surprise news of a pregnancy by referring to their future child with the "is yet to be born" pronoun instead of a more ambiguous one and waiting for the "wait what did you just say?" reactions.

Someone jokingly referring to themselves with the dead person pronouns just to highlight how horrible their current hangover is. A notorious aspiring ladies' man who keeps trying to pursue women in their 20s despite of approaching middle age fails to notice the insult when someone asks him when he's planning to get married, and uses the pronoun that implies that his ideal future bride may not even be born yet.

A mother whose young adult child just moved away from home for the first time, who continues to dramatically refer to their child with "may or may not be already dead" until the aforementioned child replies to her on facebook like "ma stop telling people I'm dead" and having her respond with "well how could I possibly know that when you don't even write to us? >:,C"

Trying to find a fic. It's My Hero Academia. Izuku asks All Might if he can be a hero, gets a no. Then he goes down a list, asking a bunch of different heroes if someone Quirkless can be a hero. Eventually, he ends up in Aizawa's class and asks him if someone Quirkless can be a hero. Aizawa tells him he already is.

He's helped the little girl, who was in a coma Astral projecting and had managed to get lost from the hospital she was in, and figured he was done.

A couple of months later, there's a knock on his dorm door while he's doing school work. He figures it's the dinner he ordered and opens the door.

Outside stands a red haired man, who seems confused about why he's there. And. That Girl. The not-a-ghost girl. The coma patient girl. Looking smug as hell. "Thanks for helping me get better!" She chirps.

He slams the door closed.

What the hell? She wasn't supposed to remember!

Danny's retired. The ghost of a little girl doesn't particularly care about that.

He's in Star City, attending college, trying to keep his shit together after some huge villain attack that almost leveled the city.

And the ghost of a little girl stops him in his tracks.

Normally, ghosts leave him alone. They know when someone's too strong to fuck with, and they know he doesn't want to get involved in hero shit.

The exception being murder victims who want him to help point cops in the direction of their murderers....

...and this one little girl.

She bears the marks of death by collateral, so clearly not a murder victim.

Danny tries to brush past her.

She reappears.

This happens again. And again. And again.

"Look, kid, if I help you then every single ghost is gonna be on my ass for making an exception. You need to move on, for your sake and your family's-"

"My name is Lian Harper," the little girl interrupts, kicking him in the shin, "An' you're gonna help my dad, whether you like it or not."

i do love the idea of the Justice League finding out Batman’s identity and the fact that he’s actually just a tired vigilante dad and immediately discrediting his spooky-scary-intimidating reputation, and Bruce just being devastated about it. he worked so hard on that reputation, on that respect, and it’s all down the drain just like that. nobody flinches away from his glare anymore, because they’ve seen him glare at Red Hood and get a spoonful of mashed potato flung into his face for the effort. nobody cares about his threats anymore, because he tried to threaten Red Robin to go home and rest one time and Tim just giggled at him deliriously before mocking his tone and stealing his coffee. they’ve seen him pick a splinter out of a whining Nightwing’s finger mid-meeting. Damian once called him a condomless harlot to his face when he told him not to bring his swords onto the watchtower. he’s lost control.

he decides he wants the fear factor back and in all his brilliant genius, he decides the best way to go about that is to invite the league round for a fancy dinner party, specifically so he can use all his ‘brucie wayne’ acting skills to channel the essence of every creepy-rich-guy-in-haunted-manor movie he has ever seen in his life. it is the only time his kids have been fully onboard and willing to contribute to one of his plans without any complaints. they almost seemed more eager to pull it off than he was.

they spend the entire day making the manor look old and slightly abandoned, much to Alfred’s displeasure, and ensure that the only lighting is a fuck ton of candles, just enough to light the halls while leaving the corners and edges shadowy and ominous. Damian is allowed to have some of his more ‘skittery’ pets roam the manor freely for the night, causing occasional scritches and scratches to come from the ceilings. all of the kids dress in their best funeral attire, apart from Jason who gleefully pulls on an old white shirt stained with blood from when Tim crashed through his window with a stab wound, requesting a medkit.

when the league arrive they’re greeted by all the kids lined up on the staircase, staring at them blankly and ominously, while Bruce gives them all a large grin and ushers them into the creepy looking dining room. the league are somewhat nervous.

during the dinner the kids act completely different than the league have seen them in-mask. polite, cordial, and refusing to show an ounce of emotion. they pick at their food and only speak in vague sentences that refer to various horrific events of their past. Bruce has never been prouder.

the first close call they have to breaking character is when Bruce presents a bottle of red wine without any kind of label. as he pours a slightly disturbed Diana a glass, she asks where he got it from. Bruce happily gestures to Jason as says ‘my second eldest procured it especially for you, earlier today.’

Diana looks across the table at where Jason is grinning eerily at her by candlelight, still visibly stained with blood, eyes glowing slightly green. she pales, and Tim knows he can’t watch her shakily lift the glass to her lips without bursting out laughing. he refuses to be the one who fucks up first, so he dramatically stands up and declares he must ‘go feed the experiments’ before storming out the room. ‘the experiments’ are in reference to the pen of rabbits outside that glow in the dark because Damian rescued them from a testing facility, but given the environmental context it sounds much more sinister.

Jason joins him by the pen to also start wheeze-crying in private about 20 minutes later, because apparently after Oliver Queen had finished with his bbq rib, Damian had leaned over and without blinking stared into his eyes to blankly state ‘i would love to feed your bones to my animal friends, if you don’t need them anymore.’ and from the other end of the table Jason had snorted wine up his nose from how hard he was trying not to break.

amazingly, they never break character, although it came pretty close when after hearing another skitter from somewhere above, Stephanie climbed up from the table into the crystal chandelier and deftly returned to present the table with a large tarantula cradled in her hands, to which Damian stood up and declared, ‘ah, dessert! i will help pennyworth prepare it.’ before taking the animal and leaving to put his beloved spider back in it’s enclosure. the league genuinely seemed to be under the impression they were about to be served a tarantula-based desert, and upon seeing their faces at this realisation Dick had to pretend he’d dropped a fork on the ground so he could duck by Bruce’s chair and stuff a napkin in his mouth while he got his laughter under control. Bruce pats his shaking son’s back below the table cloth, determinedly staring at their guests with that same creepy-grin he’d kept up the entire night.

every member of the league makes their excuses to leave early, much to Bruce’s exaggerated disappointment. the second the last of them is out the door Alfred turns to face the family and says ‘mission accomplished. now get this manor back to it’s proper state.’ and they have the spend the rest of the night cleaning.

totally worth it, in Bruce’s mind. none of the JL will look him in the eye for weeks afterwards, and it was honestly the most successful attempt at family bonding they’d ever had. he wonders if they should make it a monthly thing. It’s also how they find out Damian’s a fucking theatre kid with a gift for the arts which is another revelation in of itself

“So, you just use the rocks on blankets border?” Jason asked.

Jazz smiled. “Yes. Sam got us color coded beads for the blankets, and she turned one of the rooms at her house into a fabric shop, but all of us decided to make the blankets ourselves. And for them to be comfortable and meaningful for liminals, the cairn stones can’t fill the whole thing. So, we just put them in the border.” She gave a rueful grin as she continued, “It also helps the blankets to stay on the restless sleepers.”

Tim Drake had tracked down Sam’s contact information after the family had noticed Cass’s sudden habit of putting pebbles, small pieces of rubble, beads and marbles on Jason whenever he’s caught sleeping at the manor seemed to correlate with a less mercurial temper. The teen had laughed when he’d asked about what she’d talked to Cass about and asked for his email to send the information to.

When Jason had started reciprocating with everyone, Tim had called her back and she’d laughed at him and sent more information. Eventually, after Jason had lent Tim his blanket after being injured, Tim just gave up, he wasn’t finding any other information about this anywhere else, and called Sam to ask how many tickets he needed to buy for her to come to Gotham.

A week later saw Sam Manson, Tucker Foley, Danny and Jazz Fenton as guests in Wayne Manor. They had brought with them a collection of patchwork quilt looking lumpy blankets and an offputting old fashioned treasure chest.

“And you color code the rocks?” Steph asked, a dangerous gleam in her eye.

“Yes,” Tucker answered. “Not all of us can look at or touch them and know who gave them when they’re all in a pile. It’s not a bad thing, we just don’t have senses need for it. You don’t even need to color the whole thing. I put hieroglyphs on mine.”

“I used to put bats on mine,” Sam said. “I’ve changed to plants or seeds.”

“I just put teal dots on mine,” Jazz added. “I haven’t some up with anything else for them. It hasn’t been needed and I don’t have time for anything else.”

They all look at Danny, who has been locking in a staring contest with Alfred the Cat for the last ten minutes. Sam poked him for attention.

“I put stars, constellations, ice or snow,” he answered, not breaking eye contact. “It depends on how much time I’ve got, how tired I am, or if I just need to keep my hands busy. I gave one to Jazz once that was covered in fern frost and the Aquarius constellation.”

“And you do that for all of them?” Damian asked.

“It makes sense for us, since we just have ourselves,” Danny shrugged. “If you guys do that too, I’d suggest something simple in a single color. Your Fraid is bigger than ours, so it’d be difficult to personalize each and every one.”

Ok, so I've seen a few things that say Bruce Wayne and Sam Manson are Jewish. And I've seen a couple of things about Jewish traditions that say that they leave small stones on graves of loved ones, something about anchoing souls. And there's this one fic, I can't remember what it was or who wrote it, that had Sam placing small stones on Danny sometimes, just because.

I had this thought. Since Danny and Jason aren't dead, what if their loved ones made them weighted blankets, with those stones instead of beads/rice/what-have-you in regular weighted blankets.

Those blankets quickly become their favorite. It's soothing on an instinctual level. Sleeping with those blankets is the best sleep they've ever had. No nightmares. Just happy, sleeping, ghost purrs. Because those blankets are full of love and recognition of loss and ghosts appreciate that recognition of loss from the living, need it.

It's why Ember wants to hear her name, why Skulker and Technus shout their names and titles. They want to be recognized.

Just imagine, movie night at the manor. Some poor soul tries to playfully steal Jason's weighted blanket. Jason's eyes haven't been so bright since he emerged from the Lazarus Pits and he's snarling and growling to impress a dragon. Message received: don't touch the blanket.

In a safer city, Tim Drake would have been a teen detective. Like Kudo Shinichi (case closed), Nancy drew, boxcar children, or any of a dozen others.

Fun thought:

What if Danny is Ghost Prince because he died and was revived by the Infinite Realms itself. Pariah was just a placeholder while the Realms waited for Danny.

Dp x dc idea 159

Danny is being hunted. Both his parents and the Giw. They all think he is a villain so he might as well be one.

He’d just choose who he’d be a villain for.

By then he had one choice. The flash. That man seems to care about his villain . He doesn’t think the man would let one of his villains be tortured or experimented on.

After his recent escape from the parties hunting him he sets out for central city. He’d just be a villain to an actual decent person instead.

I’m personally imagining him still a teen and doing the most mundane crimes. Just using his powers enough the cops can’t do anything to stop him.

After this, someone gets the idea to put the card on a lanyard. Whenever Danny is in an environment where he might get comfortable to sleep, or he hasn't slept in days, he can just throw it on. It's custom made with cartoon ghosts, tombstones, and zzz's.

Hearthcore needs a home. The Pit Rage was a consequence of being denied a home. Talia's manipulation made it worse. Bruce sets off the Pit Rage because paranoid and emotionally constipated. The manor being home and Bruce being himself send complicated signals to his instincts which, you know, sets him off.

Personally, I think it would be funny if, after this gets cleared up, Danny starts purring when he's comfortable around Jason. Maybe even just making ghost sounds that remind Jason of small animals calling for parents or packages.

I can just imagine, a Bat or Bird breaking in to find Jason and startling Danny so bad he makes scared baby ghost noises and Jason comes barreling into whatever room gun draw and eyes flashing, bundling Danny into a blanket as he points the gun at whoever had the absolute *gall* to scare the baby.

Jason's roommate is strange.

dp x dc promp

Jason Todd rented a small apartment, he has a roommate in it. This dude pays half a rent. But Jason almost never fucking sees him.

Danny is working strange shifts, was the explanation.

And one day Jason comes home and Danny sleeps at the kitchen table. Or at least Jason thought he was sleeping, but he was dead.

Then while Jason checked what could have happened, Danny opens his eyes says good day and walks away.

That happens around three times, and Danny at some point just started walking through the walls, since Jason knew something was off anyway, so no need for hiding his powers.

So Jason's roommate is Strange.

But Danny would say the exact same thing about his roommate. This Jason dude was really strange.

So thinking on clones....human ones would be successful ones correct? What if Vlad had human clones and he was upset over not being able to get the hybrid he wanted sooo....