Cryptid Batfamily - Tumblr Posts

For any of your cryptid batfam AUs. We know Batman thinks criminals are superstitious and cowardly. So how superstitious should most Gothamites be? What are some of the superstitions and things they do because of that? And what random BS do the Bat kids do to actively encourage the superstitions because they think it’s funny?

Vibrates in headcanons.

Okay, so, this is less just the criminals of Gotham- a lot of goons are just trying to put food on the table after all- and more of, Gothamites in general. Like they have good reason to be superstitious.

Like everyone already knows about the Court of Owls, if nothing else then from the Rhyme they use to get children to behave. But Gotham? Is Weird with a capital W even in canon. There are literal streets that disappear and only reappear on certain days, areas where on specific days gravity just doesn't work right, several portals to hell have been opened just in Arkham alone, and there's enough curses and cults to smother any other place.

Funnily enough I am actually currently working on a story that focuses a bit more on the superstitions of Gotham lol. Like a lot of this stuff? Not shit you're going to see in the more tourist-esque spots, but those are death traps already.

Now a lot of the habits and myths of Gotham start out as a thing about Survival. It started less with things about the Bats and more about the Rogues and how to survive.

Tiny plant boxes meticulously cared for, after one noticed how plants react when Ivy is around. They line the windows of almost every home despite the smog, and some even pray through them for their Mother to not attack today.

Small scarecrow dolls, made of grass balls and cloth hang from overhangs on roofs with rope like a hangman, a charm in hopes that the one walking the streets will leave them alone. It ends with some claiming that if you rip the head from the body of cloth, the Scarecrow will come for you.

Small candles and lanterns begin to appear on the windowsills of children, their own homemade batsignals. Some say if you're very good, gifts will appear beside it, while others claim that if you're very bad, the Signal will appear and take you away.

Tiny shrines appear on rooftops over the years, meticulously carved statuettes within. It started with one for the Second Robin, and some whisper about how the Red Hood emerged from it, was reborn through their prayers and gifts. Now there are more, offerings ranging from snacks to child's drawings to figures of clay. No one dares take things from it, the last time someone tried... well, let's just say it didn't end well.

The thing is? The Bats don't even have to do much to encourage this, and don't usually even do it on purpose.

Everyone knows what happened to the ones who tried to be a vigilante. They know of the first Batgirl, humanity slowly dripped away the longer she huddled in the Bat's shadow until she was twisting around just like it. Any child who had been making their own costumes, their parents burned it that night, terrified that the Bat would take their children to be its own next. The small child, everyone knew about him, a wee little thing with a camera clutched against his chest. They all saw him run after the Bats despite the protests, saw him run towards the Bat as bodies crumbled before it. They saw him grab its arm with such tiny hands, and the Bat, grieving, stopped. They all saw the Bat whisk him away, and once more whispered to their children to never follow the Bats into the shadows. They know of the girl cloaked in amethyst cloth, who chased after them despite the warnings and pleadings of others. She disappeared, and the faceless thing of chittering laughs that raced the Robin that appeared in her stead... Everyone knows what happens to those who offer themselves to the Bats, knowingly or not.

Robin can mimic voices, their own childish giggles and clicks echoing across the stone slipping into another's words. What is merely a game to them is horrific for anyone wandering the streets in the dark of the night. Some say that it can steal your voice permanently if it so wished.

Everyone in Gotham knows that the Bats aren't human. Oh they might mimic and pretend to be as such, or even had been at some point, but they're confident they aren't. Even if they put on an act outside of Gotham, corpse-like skin gaining hints of color like blood is actually rushing through veins, everyone knows that's what it is. An act.

The Bats themselves? Well, it keeps their civilian identity safe- and the shrines have helped them get children out of bad home lives and to safety, so they're not going to just... not encourage it.

Slightly cryptid Batman idea:

(Not familiar enough with costume evolutions to know how canonical this is, but if DC can mess with the timeline as much as they did with the New52, I can tweak costumes.)

Anyway, Batman here is still human (mostly) but Gotham got to him and now he’s a little… feral? Inhuman? Weird?

Bruce was a rich only child so he’s always been a little possessive, but he was also raised by Alfred, so he doesn’t show it a whole lot and it’s not very bad.

Until Gotham gets to him.

And with most things he’s the same as he’s ever been. But with his Robins? His birds? His babies? That man is now some kind of weird mix of dragon and cat and bear.

They are his and he loves them so so so so so so much, even if he would never use those words. Something deep inside him kinda wants to just gather them all into his cave and never let them out of his sight, but he knows they’d all hate that and he values their agency, so he doesn’t do that.

Instead, he makes sure that everyone knows they’re his.

As many of them as he can convince have a huge bat emblem across their chests. Robin has little bats at the hem of his cape and at his collar. All of their boots have little bat symbols on the sides. Their dominos get more and more overtly bat themed.

Every time he sees one of them with his symbol on them, something in his chest purrs. And if their wearing it in their civilian clothes? That’s even better. (Tim has a huge oversized Batman hoodie that Jason will deny until he’s blue in the face was originally his; Cass has a few sets of bat hair clips; Dick has a pair of yoga pants that are covered in garishly colored bat symbols)

He won’t trap them, he won’t control them, but he’ll mark them as his until they stop him, which none of them seem inclined to do. (A couple of them find it a little weird, but this is so much better than anything else he could be doing that they just go with it. Those whose slightly-feral-cryptid tendencies align most with Bruce’s find that it makes them feel incredibly loved.)

And that’s the story of how the bat kids all ended up covered in bats. And how the main result of Bruce becoming vaguely-a-cryptid is that his kids are covered in bats.

Prompt:

It takes forever and a day for someone to notice, but after decades of crime fighting, the Justice League finally catches onto the fact that—-

Batman doesn’t seem to be aging. At all.

Sure there are some lines on his face but anybody with as many children as him would have them. And yes, he does complain of back pains every now and again, but he’s been doing that since the day the JLA first formed, so who knows.

Come to think of it, his gaggle of kids don’t seem to be a day over twenty-two either. None of them. Even Nightwing, who should be well into his fourties’ (fifties?? Sixties???) still looks exactly the same.

The JLA decide to investigate.

Which isn’t exactly the easiest thing to do, because it’s Gotham, and every single person in that godforsaken city is bloody insane as they come to find out. (With a side dish of plausible deniability to boot)

Well, Mermay is almost done buuut, Aquatic batfam is always lovely. So which would you be fine hearing me ramble about-slash-work on the Oneshots lol

Eel Mer-   Eeels. Long wriggly friends. Now with apposable thumbs! And Bruce's growing adoption problem- and a slight family curse but shhh.

Merfolk-   I mean, fish! A mixture of modern and fantasy with the merfolk of Gotham waters being cryptids compared to the rest of the seas. The bats think it's hilarious.

Octopus Mer-   Octopi are fun. And you ever see the videos of octopus continuously escaping their tanks? Imagine if the octopi were vigilantes with weapons. Yeaah...

Crabtaur-  Lazarus crabs? Lazarus crabs! And a curse to them all that they have to work around in their day to day lives.

Nudibranch-   Sea Slugs? Indeed. And a lot of them poisonous and using the poisons in their work- along with messing with each other.

Mershark-   Sharks! Includes Flashpoint-esque Thomas being a murder grandpa and past AlfredxMarthaxThomas, along with Bruce being less murderous

Kraken-   Squids. Think giant merfolk but well, giant squids. Fantasy-esque AU with Gotham being the largest population of pirates & crime on the seas.

Sea Dragon- Sea serpents mixed with seahorses and a bit more. Includes the kids being bio-kids via blood ritual and a couple galas. Also some shapeshifting.

Prompt 289

While Bruce was lost in time, he made a Deal. 

He doesn’t exactly mention it to his family when he comes back- he was more than a little busy trying to figure out what he missed, where his children were, what the fuck had even happened. Besides, he’d put it in the report that he’d encountered some sort of primordial time being- even if he was still investigating that on his down time. 

So he thinks he can be forgiven for forgetting to mention anything until Clark drops a cup while staring at him with a pale expression and shakily asks why there’s a second, slower heartbeat in his chest. He just also wishes it wasn’t in the middle of a League meeting. 

How about the batfam being able to climb walls and hang from the ceiling

snifs u

giv. Cryptid Batfamily Prompts please, I wanna write

If I could I would pay you to continue this

So if I were to hypothetically start a Project....

Would anyone actually be interested in it?

Meme Prompt 11

A three-way crossover this time

Shadow Demon but

BABEE

Jim Gordon's pal, the Shadow demon describes baby Dick

The Shadow Demon and the Blue Jay describes baby Jason

Finding Tim(e) describes baby Tim