TOA AU Where

TOA AU where…

When the Trollhunter receives their amulet, they hear the name of the next Trollhunter. It's to ensure they're properly trained before receiving the mantle.

And so when Kanjigar receives the amulet and activates its power for the first time, he hears “Jim Lake Junior”.

That… doesn't sound like a trollish name. That doesn't sound like a trollish name at all!

He consults Vendel and Blinkous and they come to a conclusion that it's a human name. Oh woe.

After days spent on trying to rip their horns off from stress because what if they're gonna be a changeling?? Huh?? Vendel whacks him on the head and tells him to stop worrying. Whatever comes, comes.

It's not until nearly four centuries later when he hears the name again. He was hiding from sunlight in a mini-forest near human dwellings when he heard a woman screaming “James Lake, you are not going to leave me here with our son alone!”

He watches, with batted breath as the male human does indeed leave. Feeling a pull of fate he sneaks into the house during night fall, and hears the woman talking to a sleeping child. “Oh Jim… how are we going to get through this…?”

He found him. He found Jim Lake Jr, the future Trollhunter.

He sneaks out, the same way he sneaked in, and goes to consult Vendel.

“He is but a whelp! A human whelp at that!”

“Well, we're gonna have to work with that. Somehow.”

They decide to wait a few more years until the kid looks like he could pick up a training sword and not fall over, and then they reveal themselves to his mother and him.

Barbara Lake is a demon in human skin, Kanjigar swears. The woman is protective as all hell towards her son, and she proved that by breaking a broom over his head. Kanjigar briefly entertains a thought of her being a Trollhunter but drops it quickly. Amulet chose Jim.

And oh Great Gronka Morka is Jim different. He's a soft, empathetic boy who doesn't shy away from them. Sure, he was scared at first, but curiosity and wonder won. And when he learnt about being tasked with protecting a race he hadn't known existed a few hours earlier? He took it in stride, saying he'll do this.

———

Essentially Jim gets three troll dads (one dies, sorry) and learns how to be Trollhunter much earlier on.

I am. So fucking tired of Batman being portrayed as a bad parent and a toxic person. And it’s so goddamn widespread. Fuck, it might be as bad as the whole “Superman being a kindhearted Boy Scout is boring” take.

I get it, the man’s not exactly stable, he watched his parents get murdered in front of him and spent years of his life training to fight crime dressed like a giant scary bat, of course he’s not perfect.

But to say that Bruce Wayne isn’t caring, isn’t empathetic, to call him abusive…it just misses the point of who the character is to me.

Why do you think he fights crime? Yes, part of it is because he’s bitter and sad because his parents were cruelly ripped from him as a child, and he’s lashing out against the corruption of his city. It’s arguably the focus of his earlier years. But he learns to become more than that. He learns to bring hope, a chance to be better.

Harleen Quinzel is the Joker’s right hand lady, but she’s also a victim of an abusive relationship and a woman with a surprisingly strong moral compass and a love for animals, and wants to get better.

Harvey Dent is a man who will decide someone’s fate on a coin toss(and a pretty inaccurate depiction of DID), but he’s also Bruce’s close friend who clearly needs help learning to live with his condition, rather than try to get rid of it, and someone who he still goes out of his way to visit, even after everything.

Victor Fries is a cold, emotionless man who will callously discard allies and blame them for being careless, but he’s also a man who’s either lashing out because he had the love of his life taken from him, or just desperate to make sure she isn’t taken from him, and is willing to do anything just to guarantee her survival.

Even the Joker, arguably one of the most morally bankrupt characters in all of fiction, is someone that Batman has offered a chance to. After the guy shoots the daughter of his friend, a girl he cared for like she was his own kid, and paralyzes her from the waist down, he tells the Joker that he doesn’t want to hurt him. He wants to get him help. He looks at this monster who has taken countless lives and says “You don’t have to be alone.”

For fuck’s sake, he sat with Joe Chill in his last moments so that he wouldn’t be alone. Joe Chill, the man who murdered his parents, who took so much from him, the person responsible for all of the misery and suffering he’s gone through. And he sits with the man to comfort him while dies.

And you’re gonna tell me the man who did that would abuse his kids?

That he’d hold up the young man whose death was his greatest failure, the boy he grieved, and say this?

That he’d look his goddamn son in the eyes and say this to him?

Why the FUCK do you think he took in Dick Grayson in the first place? It wasn’t because he saw the kid and thought “Ah. A potential soldier.”, it was because he saw a boy experiencing the same heartbreaking loss he had so many years ago, and wanted to make sure he didn’t end up as bitter and miserable as he was.

Why do you think he smiled when Tim Drake presented him a broken watch for Father’s Day? Because he was just happy to see the boy alive and safe.

DAMIAN LITERALLY POINTED AT A COW AND SAID “I’m keeping her. She’s Bat-Cow.” AND BRUCE JUST WENT WITH IT. DIDN’T EVEN NEED TO ARGUE WHY BRUCE SHOULD LET HIM KEEP HER. HE SAID “this cow is my pet now” AND BRUCE SAID “alright, bet”.

The thing about Batman is that he wants to make sure nobody else ends up feeling the way he does. That’s not just about stopping a mugger so a boy’s parents aren’t gunned down. It’s about giving his loved ones the support and care that he couldn’t have, because it was taken from him. It’s about comforting someone who just went through a traumatic experience and letting them know that they’re going to be okay. It’s about going to someone locked away in a cell who thinks that they’re a lost cause and a burden to society and telling them that he wants to help them get better. It’s about EMPATHY.

That’s what makes him a HERO. He’s meant to inspire us, to show us that we can have that same empathy for others around us, that we can turn our suffering into hope for a better future.

I just wish more people at DC would start recognizing that. But I might as well follow that example myself. Maybe through this struggle of having to see this hero mistreat the people around him and act like a grade-A jackass, people will start to recognize that missing empathy, and slowly but surely, it might come back. After all, what is this post, if not trying to bring attention to the matter in the hopes of fixing it?

I am. So fucking tired of Batman being portrayed as a bad parent and a toxic person. And it’s so goddamn widespread. Fuck, it might be as bad as the whole “Superman being a kindhearted Boy Scout is boring” take.

I get it, the man’s not exactly stable, he watched his parents get murdered in front of him and spent years of his life training to fight crime dressed like a giant scary bat, of course he’s not perfect.

But to say that Bruce Wayne isn’t caring, isn’t empathetic, to call him abusive…it just misses the point of who the character is to me.

Why do you think he fights crime? Yes, part of it is because he’s bitter and sad because his parents were cruelly ripped from him as a child, and he’s lashing out against the corruption of his city. It’s arguably the focus of his earlier years. But he learns to become more than that. He learns to bring hope, a chance to be better.

Harleen Quinzel is the Joker’s right hand lady, but she’s also a victim of an abusive relationship and a woman with a surprisingly strong moral compass and a love for animals, and wants to get better.

Harvey Dent is a man who will decide someone’s fate on a coin toss(and a pretty inaccurate depiction of DID), but he’s also Bruce’s close friend who clearly needs help learning to live with his condition, rather than try to get rid of it, and someone who he still goes out of his way to visit, even after everything.

Victor Fries is a cold, emotionless man who will callously discard allies and blame them for being careless, but he’s also a man who’s either lashing out because he had the love of his life taken from him, or just desperate to make sure she isn’t taken from him, and is willing to do anything just to guarantee her survival.

Even the Joker, arguably one of the most morally bankrupt characters in all of fiction, is someone that Batman has offered a chance to. After the guy shoots the daughter of his friend, a girl he cared for like she was his own kid, and paralyzes her from the waist down, he tells the Joker that he doesn’t want to hurt him. He wants to get him help. He looks at this monster who has taken countless lives and says “You don’t have to be alone.”

For fuck’s sake, he sat with Joe Chill in his last moments so that he wouldn’t be alone. Joe Chill, the man who murdered his parents, who took so much from him, the person responsible for all of the misery and suffering he’s gone through. And he sits with the man to comfort him while dies.

And you’re gonna tell me the man who did that would abuse his kids?

That he’d hold up the young man whose death was his greatest failure, the boy he grieved, and say this?

That he’d look his goddamn son in the eyes and say this to him?

Why the FUCK do you think he took in Dick Grayson in the first place? It wasn’t because he saw the kid and thought “Ah. A potential soldier.”, it was because he saw a boy experiencing the same heartbreaking loss he had so many years ago, and wanted to make sure he didn’t end up as bitter and miserable as he was.

Why do you think he smiled when Tim Drake presented him a broken watch for Father’s Day? Because he was just happy to see the boy alive and safe.

DAMIAN LITERALLY POINTED AT A COW AND SAID “I’m keeping her. She’s Bat-Cow.” AND BRUCE JUST WENT WITH IT. DIDN’T EVEN NEED TO ARGUE WHY BRUCE SHOULD LET HIM KEEP HER. HE SAID “this cow is my pet now” AND BRUCE SAID “alright, bet”.

The thing about Batman is that he wants to make sure nobody else ends up feeling the way he does. That’s not just about stopping a mugger so a boy’s parents aren’t gunned down. It’s about giving his loved ones the support and care that he couldn’t have, because it was taken from him. It’s about comforting someone who just went through a traumatic experience and letting them know that they’re going to be okay. It’s about going to someone locked away in a cell who thinks that they’re a lost cause and a burden to society and telling them that he wants to help them get better. It’s about EMPATHY.

That’s what makes him a HERO. He’s meant to inspire us, to show us that we can have that same empathy for others around us, that we can turn our suffering into hope for a better future.

I just wish more people at DC would start recognizing that. But I might as well follow that example myself. Maybe through this struggle of having to see this hero mistreat the people around him and act like a grade-A jackass, people will start to recognize that missing empathy, and slowly but surely, it might come back. After all, what is this post, if not trying to bring attention to the matter in the hopes of fixing it?

the dynamic between heinz doofenschmirtz and perry the platypus would probably come off as v romantic and gay if they were two people in a similar age range rather than a dude and a platypus. no i dont ship them but think about it. villainous monologues are already a very romantic and gay thing in itself (don’t question me on this you know im right). listening to somebody ramble excitedly about something they’re proud of is even more romantic and cute af. also doofensmirtz is already gay anyway. the only thing preventing this from becoming Peak Gay is the fact that perry is strictly professional and also a platypus. thanks for coming to my ted talk

So, I love some Miles Morales x Rise crossovers.

But I think the turtles would come from Gwen’s universe.

Superheroes are relatively new in that world, after all. No Spiderman. No other major mutants or avengers or anything.

Just a girl with a punk haircut battling the mutant lizard her friend became in the sewers.

Which is of course where Raph finds her an hour later, crying in a corner by an electrical box. Someone set off Donnie’s proximity alerts, and Raph went to check it out.

Let’s say Gwen has her entire costume on, so she doesn’t necessarily look like she would be human. Raph, being the soft hearted turtle that he is, picks her up, and takes her home, because she can’t seem to get a word out while she’s crying, and he’s worried there may be something wrong with her.

Gwen is not sure she isn’t hallucinating the giant turtle in her grief over Peter, but it’s not hurting her, so she’s just goig to go back to crying.

Eventually the story comes out: girl mutated by spider, turtles mutated to destroy the world of men. This is post-krang, so Raph is 17ish, the twins are 16, and Mikey is almost 15. Gwen is also 16.

Gwen enjoys having some friends she can talk to about weird powers and magic stuff. Mikey is happy to have a friend he can do ballet and swing from the rootftops with. They have competitions over who can do the most spins.

When Into the Spiderverse happens, Donnie was *this close* to ripping open the space time continuum to find their little sister.

When Gwen returns with a crazy story about the multiverse, Donnie still does it, muttering the entire while about amateurs who can’t even open a portal to another dimension without breaking everything. He is also upset over Doc Oc taking his look. He had the multiple helper arms first, thank you. Donnie makes a stable portal watch, and the turtles plus Gwen decide to spend a Saturday touring around a different new york and seeing Gwen’s friend Miles that they’ve heard so much about.

Mikey has some fun checking out the differences in street art across dimensions, which is how he comes upon the coolest mural he has ever seen and the cute boy spray painting it.

Mikey makes a fool of himself, trips over some paint cans trying to introduce himself, and runs off, face flaming, glad he will never see that cute guy again.

Cue Mikey wishing he could melt into the earth when Gwen introduces said cute guy as her friend Miles.

Meanwhile, Miles thinks the mutant turtles with magic powers are the coolest things he has ever seen. He really wants to draw them for mural inspiration. Especially the one with the orange freckles.