I Posted This On An Aroace Subreddit And What I Loved Is That Everyone Seemed To Have Their Own Interpretation

also did i post this one yet? i don’t think so.

Plot armor but it’s Bruce Wayne’s wealth.

Bruce is one of the richest men in the world. Bruce does not want to be one of the richest men in world.

He starts by implementing high starting salaries and full health care coverages for all levels at Wayne Enterprises. This in vastly improves retention and worker productivity, and WE profits soar. He increases PTO, grants generous parental and family leave, funds diversity initiatives, boosts salaries again. WE is ranked “#1 worker-friendly corporation”, and productively and profits soar again.

Ok, so clearly investing his workers isn’t the profit-destroying doomed strategy his peers claim it is. Bruce is going to keep doing it obviously (his next initiative is to ensure all part-time and contractors get the same benefits and pay as full time employees), but he is going to have to find a different way to dump his money.

But you know what else is supposed to be prohibitively expensive? Green and ethical initiatives. Yes, Bruce can do that. He creates and fund a 10 year plan to covert all Wayne facilities to renewable energy. He overhauls all factories to employ the best environmentally friendly practices and technologies. He cuts contracts with all suppliers that engage in unethical employment practices and pays for other to upgrade their equipment and facilities to meet WE’s new environmental and safety requirements. He spares no expense.

Yeah, Wayne Enterprises is so successful that they spin off an entire new business arm focused on helping other companies convert to environmentally friendly and safe practices like they did in an efficient, cost effective, successful way.

Admittedly, investing in his own company was probably never going to be the best way to get rid of his wealth. He slashes his own salary to a pittance (god knows he has more money than he could possibly know what to do with already) and keeps investing the profits back into the workers, and WE keeps responding with nearly terrifying success.

So WE is a no-go, and Bruce now has numerous angry billionaires on his back because they’ve been claiming all these measures he’s implementing are too expensive to justify for decades and they’re finding it a little hard to keep the wool over everyone’s eyes when Idiot Softheart Bruice Wayne has money spilling out his ears. BUT Bruce can invest in Gotham. That’ll go well, right?

Gotham’s infrastructure is the OSHA anti-Christ and even what little is up to code is constantly getting destroyed by Rogue attacks. Surely THAT will be a money sink.

Except the only non-corrupt employer in Gotham city is….Wayne Enterprises. Or contractors or companies or businesses that somehow, in some way or other, feed back to WE. Paying wholesale for improvement to Gotham’s infrastructure somehow increases WE’s profits.

Bruce funds a full system overhaul of Gotham hospital (it’s not his fault the best administrative system software is WE—he looked), he sets up foundations and trusts for shelters, free clinics, schools, meal plans, day care, literally anything he can think of.

Gotham continues to be a shithole. Bruce Wayne continues to be richer than god against his Batman-ingrained will.

Oh, and Bruice Wayne is no longer viewed as solely a spoiled idiot nepo baby. The public responds by investing in WE and anything else he owns, and stop doing this, please.

Bruce sets up a foundation to pay the college tuition of every Gotham citizen who applies. It’s so successful that within 10 years, donations from previous recipients more than cover incoming need, and Bruce can’t even donate to his own charity.

But by this time, Bruce has children. If he can’t get rid of his wealth, he can at least distribute it, right?

Except Dick Grayson absolutely refuses to receive any of his money, won’t touch his trust fund, and in fact has never been so successful and creative with his hacking skills as he is in dumping the money BACK on Bruce. Jason died and won’t legally resurrect to take his trust fund. Tim has his own inherited wealth, refuses to inherit more, and in fact happily joins forces with Dick to hack accounts and return whatever money he tries to give them. Cass has no concept of monetary wealth and gives him panicked, overwhelmed eyes whenever he so much as implies offering more than $100 at once. Damian is showing worrying signs of following in his precious Richard’s footsteps, and Babs barely allows him to fund tech for the Clocktower. At least Steph lets him pay for her tuition and uses his credit card to buy unholy amounts of Batburger. But that is hardly a drop in the ocean of Bruce’s wealth. And she won’t even accept a trust fund of only one million.

Jason wins for best-worst child though because he currently runs a very lucrative crime empire. And although he pours the vast, vast majority of his profits back into Crime Alley, whenever he gets a little too rich for his tastes, he dumps the money on Bruce. At this point, Bruce almost wishes he was being used for money laundering because then he’s at least not have the money.

So children—generous, kindhearted, stubborn till the day they die the little shits, children—are also out.

Bruce was funding the Justice League. But then finances were leaked, and the public had an outcry over one man holding so much sway over the world’s superheroes (nevermind Bruce is one of those superheroes—but the public can’t know that). So Bruce had to do some fancy PR trickery, concede to a policy of not receiving a majority of funds from one individual, and significantly decrease his contributions because no one could match his donations.

At his wits end, Bruce hires a team of accounts to search through every crinkle and crevice of tax law to find what loopholes or shortcuts can be avoided in order to pay his damn taxes to the MAX.

The results are horrifying. According to the strictest definition of the law, the government owes him money.

Bruce burns the report, buries any evidence as deeply as he can, and organizes a foundation to lobby for FAR higher taxation of the upper class.

All this, and Wayne Enterprises is happily chugging along, churning profit, expanding into new markets, growing in the stock market, and trying to force the credit and proportionate compensation on their increasingly horrified CEO.

Bruce Wayne is one of the richest men in the world. Bruce Wayne will never not be one of the richest men in the world.

But by GOD is he trying.

:)

"Fright" Knight

So! You know how in some parts of this Phantom, people call Danny's Ghostly family his Fright?

Well what if that is the official term for Ghost Families/Ghost Groups in the Realms? And if so, that has some implications for Fright Knight

Fright Knight is a Spirit of Familial and Interpersonal Protection, the representation of the Guardianship of Families, Friends, and Homes

Or

Fright Knight was a Knight in his life who died protecting his Family and Friends. When he formed, he kept fighting to protect other Families and Friends.

The Halloween thing was just a fun little Hobby for him.

May your next period be light and end quickly

In every (most) fics. Danny figures out the batfams identities, via Jason and his being ead aftereffects or just figuring out, which is cool and all. But what if he didn't.

Like what if Danny got adopted by the Waynes and just didn't realize how weird they were and vigilante like they were, he was just obvious to it. Insane amounts of obviousness. It could go one of two ways. Him genuinely not realizing.

Danny: hey, you look a lot like someone i know *suspicious eye squint* Nightwing: Ehm, do I? most be some good-looking person, *nervous laughter* Danny: Hmmm *Shrugs* ah well, must a freaky coincidence. Nightwing: Ha, ha...Yeah...that's it. Or denial. Him not wanting to have any semblance of a normal life be destroyed to denies it desperately. Tim: Look Danny, there's something you gotta know *pulls out red robin suit for proof* Danny: Oh, cool cosplay! looks almost like the real thing. Tim: What? No, it's- Danny: *grabs Tim by the shirt* It's not the real thing because this is a totally normal family, right? This totally normal family who has no deep dark secrets, who has no portal to the afterlife in the basement, right? Tim: eh, right.

Batman being aggressively secretive towards the Justice League is one of my favorite tropes, but it gets INFINITELY funnier when you take the younger generations of heroes into consideration.

Barry Allen? He doesn't know shit about Batman, still partially convinced he's not human, still a little bit scared to talk to him. But Wally West? That's Nightwing's best friend. He's been around Dick since both of them were kids. He's had sleepovers at the manor since he was thirteen.

I just think it would be hilarious if all of the younger generations 100% know that Batman is Bruce Wayne. They've slept at the manor, some of them have taken various Batkids to school dances, they've been offered Alfred's cooking. And all because they've gotten close to at least one Batkid and said Batkid wore Bruce down until he let them reveal their identity. But all of them manage to keep this information from their mentors. Either purposefully or completely on accident.

Then you end up with a situation where the younger generations grow up and join the League and the older members Very Quickly realize that they seem a lot more comfortable with Batman than they should be.

You know how camp counsellors (this may just be my experience come to think of it) are always from the wildest, most unexpected parts of the planet? I think it's deeply fitting that Dick Grayson was a camp counsellor, because his backstory as formerly being part of a travelling circus then predominantly growing up in the most crime-ridden city in the world would be hilarious as part of an ice breaker activity.

this tweet is so accurate

Bruce Wayne except he texts like an ominous boomer

wdym you can't tell if he's threatening them?

Based on this post by @mysterycitrus :)

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Bonus:

Happy birthday, Tim 🥰