recs and links

There is no hiding from BATMAN, THE SILENT KNIGHT. Once born to assassins, raised to be a killer, CASSANDRA CAIN has taken an oath to not let anyone die on her watch. She has trained for the last several years to achieve the mantle of the BAT, but as soon as she is handed the cowl she is tested for it yet again. When the CLOWN PRINCE OF CRIME escapes from Arkham Asylum, there is a consensus that the new BATMAN is not ready. CASSANDRA disagrees. She must prove herself against the DARK KNIGHT's greatest foe, or possibly die trying! Cass!Bats vs Joker! I enjoyed this. And for real, of all the kids, she's the one who should take the cowl when Bruce retires.

When Obi-Wan does not return with Leia, Bail Organa retrieves Owen, Beru, and Luke from Tatooine to start a new life on Alderaan. I enjoyed this - a compelling read.

Who takes the Narnian throne after the Pevensies were pulled back to England? As Edmund might say: if you can’t procreate, delegate. This is really lovely.

Bruce is working undercover at a 7/11. Dick does not know this. Dick is the best, no lie.

You would think it would be difficult to accidentally rob a bank! So did I. hilarious!

At the end of it all, to fix everything, the Hawkins crew had to go back to 1983 and prevent the first gate from ever opening. After that, they've got a chance to lead normal lives -- from November 1983 onward. OR Waking up to find out the government had busted a bunch of experimented-on kids out of Hawkins Lab over the weekend is somehow not the strangest thing that happens in Eddie Munson's junior year. No, that's a toss up between being reverse-adopted by a party of middle schoolers and the fact Steve Harrington won't stop staring at him. I enjoyed this!

They never stayed anywhere for long, so Luke and Leia both had spacer’s accents - an indeterminate amalgam of the blandly Core-adjacent tones of their holoschool lessons and Ben’s cut-glass Coruscanti, colored in at the edges by Outer Rim spaceport slang. I enjoyed this.

Obi-Wan is captured at the end of Obi-Wan Kenobi episode 3, and while Obi-Wan and Vader dial up the angst, Leia is not impressed with the monologuing Sith.

Dick tries his best to parent Damian. Damian tries his best, period. They’re both a bit clumsy, but they’ve got the spirit. There might be a cat. Oh heart.

It’s a long flight from Gotham to Siberia. Dick’s siblings, to Bruce’s horror, use the time to start debating Dick’s love life. This is hilarious.

Four times Bruce protected his boys not as Batman and Robin, but as their dad. Oh Bruce. #the batdad his batkids deserve

He hasn’t talked to Bruce about the college thing. It’s not that Bruce doesn’t know – they just haven’t talked about it. Jason decide to invite Bruce - and the fam - to his graduation. Oh heart!

Jason finds himself waking up tied to a chair in an underground bunker. He's not too worried about it. Jason finds himself waking up in Dick's apartment. This he might be a little worried about. BODYSWAP! this is a lot of fun!

In which Tim and Jason are staying up all night in the hallway, after Dick gets his memories back. Aw boys. Some good brotherly bonding here.

When people asked, Tim always explained that he was there during the Graysons’ last performance, which was true. Most people didn’t bother to do the math to realize that Tim was barely two years old that day. Tim explained it this way because it was both simpler and less embarrassing than admitting that he’d formed a deep parasocial relationship with a boy who’d been in one episode of a French children’s edutainment series that ran reruns for some reason at three am on Spanish language television. Oh Tim. *sniffles*

Some nights Tim escaped the oppressing confines of Drake Estate or the unreachable ideals of Wayne Manor to watch the sunrise and think. Today Bruce joined him. Oh heart. this is very sweet.

Steve has no idea why these kids want to hang out with him so much. Really lovely post-season 2 slice of life story about Steve and his friendship with the kids.

John and Mary Grayson die; Dick becomes Robin. This is everything that happens in between, a/k/a, how Gotham City ripped one family and identity from Dick and gave him another. I enjoyed this a lot! ♥Dick♥ And the sequel, https://archiveofourown.org/works/15055505 Grounded, in which Dick is grounded and sent to Smallville for a week and hijinks ensue.

There are reports of shadowy forces and a copycat Batman in Colorado. Batgirl is sent to investigate, and in the process discovers a new friend, a co-dependent study group, and a place that rivals Arkham Asylum for sheer lunacy. This was fun!

link to export DW one month at a time

the bats have a sex pollen release form. because of course they do. hilarity ensues.

Tony Stark saves the world. He dies minutes later. Peter comes back from the battle to a world that’s changed three times over: first with the Snap and his death, the next with the Reverse Snap that ends the Blip, and one more change, courtesy of an accidental thought during the Reverse Snap: the unification of two separate universes into one. This last results in a physically larger planet, and several new cities, fully formed and inhabited, popping into existence around the world. Gotham City. Metropolis, Keystone City. A few others. Peter takes this news the only way he can: he accepts it and moves on. So he does. Peter is still reeling from the war against Thanos, but he keeps pushing forward. The realities of this new world find him later, when he visits Metropolis with J. Jonah Jameson for a conference. Spidey meets Superman. Oh heart.

NYMag on the life and death of Natasha Romanoff. GROSS SOBBING

The first thing Margaret notices about the new nurse--Diana--is how quiet she is.

Presented by The Prancing Pony Podcast

No one besides a select few knew that Dick tried to solve the cases the people of the upper city were too busy to care about. Cases that dealt with the lower classes, the current addicts, the bitcoin debtors, the cyborg traders. Cases like this one. A fun cyberpunk AU.

Can the FAA make Superman go to flight school? This and other questions. Ahahaha, oh Clark.

and here and no need to wave when what we hear in our dreams we discover in our hands an edge of lace

Lovely moment of kindness for Cass when she needed it, pre-Gotham.

What was he going to say, that he was holding on to some idea of manhood that didn’t even stem from his own people? He was down for revolution, not the petty shit of rebellion: he liked most of his father’s traditions just fine. He just wasn’t pinning a corsage on his chest, marking him out as T’Challa’s new boytoy. AU where Erik comes to Wakanda as T'Challa's betrothed. Great character voices.