Anger Management - Blog Posts
Jazz x Jason Ghost Zone Wedding- DP x DC Worlds Collide Fan Zine Contribution
My piece for the @dpxdc-worldscollide zine!
This was thee most challenging piece I've worked on for the year (2024) but it was worth it! This was my first time participating in a fandom zine and I'm excited to be a part of it!
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Please check out all of the amazing art and fiction from the other artists and writers. There's so much passion and skill in this fandom!
DCxDP Anger Management Prompt/AU
Anger Management, but Jazz is completely unhinged (whether due to trauma or because Amity Parkers/Liminals are just Like That ™) and Jason is left to be the voice of reason in the relationship, despite the fact that he is most definitely not someone you would usually consider the voice of reason.
Last Night
"Heard you've been making trouble in Star City."
"We finally get an hour together and you wanna talk about Green Arrow's delusional rants?" Jazz almost sounded offended but there was a small smile on her face as she takes a sip of her drink and Jason is just grinning as he recounts everything Roy shared.
"He's worried you're gonna overthrow the local gangs at the rate you're going."
"Oh, come on." She huffs genuinely amused. "I was only defending myself."
"I know but you should see some of the theories he's cooked up. The latest one Roy told me about is something about you being an Amazon."
And they share a laugh over it as they continue to catch up over a few burgers and some drinks.
This was nice.
Simple.
It was nearly perfect even.
Jason would never openly admit it. He'd never take the chance out of fear of someone, somewhere using it against him but Jazz had been one of the best things to walk into his life.
She was strong.
So sure of herself and just as kind.
It's why he did everything he could to get her out of Gotham.
She was too kind for Arkham.
Too good for his kind of life.
The monsters in there would twist her into something unimaginable if she stayed and Jason was way too attached by then to let her become another Harley Quinn.
Central would have been better but he could trust his contacts in Star City.
Roy would look out for her when he couldn't and he could enjoy these handful of quiet moments where they were just an ordinary couple on a date.
"I can handle mister narcissist. Out of the two of us you're the one who should be worried about."
"Ah, I'm fine."
Which was a lie. Gotham was even worse than usual lately.
"Yeah, until some idiot gets lucky."
Carefully brushing their hands together she runs her fingers over where the latest stitching were. It wasn't bad but he wasn't healing like he used to, the usual after effects of the pit were losing their effect so he'd lied and said he was in a car accident.
"You're changing the subject Jazz. What's going on with you?"
He watches her get up and walk over to the corner of the restaurant to put on some music, the old jukebox playing an even older song.
"I don't know. Maybe I'm just... tired of holding it all in." She looks over her shoulder with a smile. "Maybe you're a bad influence on me."
"Who. Me?"
He gets up to join her when she holds out her hand.
"You were always a bad influence on me."
"I've got a feeling you've had a bad girl hiding inside you long before we ever met."
"Maybe. I've made a lot of bad decisions. Dated the wrong men. Trusted the wrong people but it's what led me here."
They slowly dance for a while until they hear the bartender calling out. "Hey you! No dancing." He jerks his thumb to a sign behind him saying the same thing along with this is not a dancefloor and green floods his vision before Jazz is pulling him away.
"I guess it's time to call it a night."
"Maybe we can try a different bar tomorrow?"
She sounds so hopeful and he wants to say yes. He wants nothing more than to just stay here in this moment with her but he can't. Not yet.
"I'd love to but I've gotta head back soon."
"Another one of those mysterious secret missions you can't tell me about?"
"You know it."
"You know if you ever need my help."
"Nah." He can't pull her into his messed up world. He won't. "It's just our usual family drama."
Bruce was going off the rails again. Dick was angry and everyone else was scrambling like usual to keep everything running.
It'd all be sorted out in a couple of weeks at most. Either way this was going to be his last mission.
He grabs his bag getting ready to leave when he feels a tug on his sleeve and Jazz is pulling him back into a kiss. It's the perfect way to end their night together.
Too perfect.
As they go their separate ways already planning their next date Jazz let's him go one last time not knowing that tonight would be the last night she'd ever see him again.
After Jason made it back to Gotham her texts went unanswered.
Phone calls were ignored.
Watching the news made it seem like everything that could go wrong was currently going wrong in Gotham so after two weeks of nothing but silence Jazz was in the middle of getting ready to book the first flight she could find when she suddenly felt a cold breeze drift through her apartment and between one second and the next Danny is floating there clinging to an exhausted Roy who drops down onto one of her couches looking utterly defeated.
Roy, Jason's best friend who is dressed up like Arsenal and they both look like they've just gone through hell. Their gear is busted and ripped with dried blood everywhere and she's just about to ask what's wrong, what happened, where's Jason when everything simply stops as she remembers the latest news coming out of Gotham.
Batman killed Red Hood.
It shouldn't... It was a lie.
It had to be a lie.
There were a thousand and one questions running through her mind as she stared down at the bloodied remains of Red Hood's shattered helmet in Danny's hands and every little thing she's tried to ignore until now clicks into place with a horrifying clarity.
It's been a while but I wanted to do something today and saw a short on YouTube that inspired this. It could either be the aftermath of Gotham War or Jason vs the Penguin but whatever you feel like could have caused it ends up so much worse.
Can You Hold This For Me?
Jason is enamored as he watches a beautiful red head lady beat the shit out of the mugger that got too close for her liking.
He was on his way to the local book store to find a good read when he saw a woman with her month old baby being stalked by a man who was obviously hiding a knife in his pocket. Jason immediately crossed the street to put himself between them and the mugger when all of a sudden the man got a little closer and the woman executed a perfectly good roundhouse kick to the man's head while keeping her baby secure.
After the man's body bounced in the alley and hit a trash can she turned to Jason with a brilliant smile that did something to his resurrected heart.
"Can you hold this for me?" She asked before simply putting the baby in Jason's arms before he could reply.
She then proceeded to pick the man up, who was twice her size, and flung him further into the alley before running up to finish her beat down.
A noise brought his attention from the woman to the baby in his arms who was now up and cooing at him curiously.
"Your mom's hot."
Oh but Imagine Where this could Go!! Picture this:
For Some Reason, Danny is in Gotham (Maybe his Parents Dragged him and Jazz to a Ghost/Tech Convention, Maybe Jazz Started Attending Gotham Uni/Working at Arkham, Maybe he’s there to Help the Spirit of Gotham Regain some Energy, Maybe he’s there to Fix/Get Rid of the Lazarus Pit Beneath Gotham (that’s a thing right?), Maybe he’s just on Vacation, whatever) and he Runs into Jason.
They do the Spiderman Pointing meme cause “Hey you’re Dead!” And for Jason the Pit has Calmed down to the point of almost being Gone and it’s the Best he’s felt in Years while for Danny it’s like hearing a Baby Crying cause Jason’s Core is So Young/Unfinished/Deformed/Corrupted.
So they go to one of Jason’s Safehouses, and Danny opens a Portal and Calls on one of his New Kryptonian Guards, let’s call him Qyv-Ral (pulled from this Generator), and Asks him to Escort Jason to Frostbite in the Far Frozen for Healing. He Also Tells him that he can Contact Danny to come back here and Open the Portal for their Return once Jason is Healed (how exactly is Writers Choice idk atm). Danny would have Gone With them but he has Something to do in Gotham. All Parties agree, the Portal is Opened, Jason and Qyv-Ral Go Through, Danny Closes the Portal, and the Goes about his Day. Bonus Points for if they Never Refer to Danny by Any Name, except for the Very End where Qyv-Ral says something along the lines of “Farewell my King”. Bonus Bonus Points for Danny sounding very Menacing out of context.
Meanwhile Superman, who has been Listening in since he heard the name of the Kryptonian Guard, is Very Stressed because Who is Letting The Worst of the Worst Kryptonian Criminals Loose on Earth? He Immediately Calls Batman because this is Happening in Gotham of all places and The Bat is Immediately on Red Alert. He contacts All the Birds. Cue Panic when Red Hood Doesn’t Respond, no matter who calls (he usually at least responds to Babs or Dick Sometimes). The Bats come to The Only Possibel Conclusion: Jason has been Kidnapped by this new “King” of the Criminal Kryptonians (they are Wrong. In his Excitement to be Rid of the Pit Madness once and For All, Jason just didn’t think to Tell Anyone what was going on, adding to the Belief that he’s been Kidnapped by a Rouge Kryptonian haha oops)
That’s all I’ve got. I could see this being Either Anger Management (Jazz/Jason) Or Reddead (Danny/Jason) depending on how it gets written out if someone chooses to do so. Speaking of Which, Feel Free to Continue this!!! Just Tag me when you do cause I wanna see how this goes!! Especially if you take it to AO3!
#12
Right, let's see... So, King Danny gets some housing complaints, some ghosts really are just spamming claims over non-ghost beings bothering them near their homes. So as the peacemaker he is, Danny simply goes there, a weird region of the Ghost zone really, they even named it differently because it wasn't green (among other odd quirks). He did find fun in the irony of it being called the "Phantom Zone". Anywho, the non-ghost beings there are obviously all the dangers the Justice League just doesn't deal with and dumps in that dimension. Staying in the Phantom zone for long enough (I'd say maybe a week) is sufficient enough for these beings to be considered "Infinite Realms" subjects despite not being dead. Like immigration or whatever. Dany, empathic enough due to the whole "stand out" and "odd ones out" mentality, takes all of them under his wing and in short adds them to his royal guard or other similar posts regarding their strengths.
So in short, you could say Danny was wrapped and gifted a bunch of Kryptonian soldiers for his already overpowered army.
May I add that the mentally deteriorating effects of the Phantom Region (as I'm calling it now) would probably affect the Kryptonians enough to view Danny as a divine savior after he pulled them out of madness and gave them purpose again? So they're probably very intense about their new positions and don't want to disappoint their king and grace in the slightest.
Can You Hold This For Me?
Jason is enamored as he watches a beautiful red head lady beat the shit out of the mugger that got too close for her liking.
He was on his way to the local book store to find a good read when he saw a woman with her month old baby being stalked by a man who was obviously hiding a knife in his pocket. Jason immediately crossed the street to put himself between them and the mugger when all of a sudden the man got a little closer and the woman executed a perfectly good roundhouse kick to the man's head while keeping her baby secure.
After the man's body bounced in the alley and hit a trash can she turned to Jason with a brilliant smile that did something to his resurrected heart.
"Can you hold this for me?" She asked before simply putting the baby in Jason's arms before he could reply.
She then proceeded to pick the man up, who was twice her size, and flung him further into the alley before running up to finish her beat down.
A noise brought his attention from the woman to the baby in his arms who was now up and cooing at him curiously.
"Your mom's hot."
Me and The Mirror
I was happy. I looked in the mirror, I looked beautiful. I was happier. I was sad, I looked into the mirror, I cried. I looked miserable. I didn't want to, so, I faked a smile and it turned real. I was happy again. I was angry. I looked in the mirror, my ego was hurt. I broke the mirror. Now all I see, are the broken pieces of the world and me. (4.6.19)
the best realisation I’ve ever had was waking up to the fact that I do not have to go to bat for celebrities.
I don’t have to spend my precious time being angry because someone believes in a different story than I do. I can have my beliefs and they can have theirs because stupid celebrity stuff doesn’t matter as much as the media wants you to think.
stop defending Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively and Justin, stop justifying Johnny Depp or Amber Heard taking your time and happiness. Stop trying to make excuses for Kanye West and go outside.
it’s hard to choose to be happy because it’s not really a choice, it’s a conservation effort. Conserve your anger for political changes that affect you and go to protests. Stop slinging mud for people who don’t know you exist.
next time you say something even slightly mean or offensive I’m going right for your throat
Still thinking about the Social Worker Jazz concept that @gilbirda posted about and it's slowly turning into a full Anger Management fic send help
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Jason at length - much longer than it really should have taken really - set the resume down.
The new Social Worker’s resume. Because she was there, in his office, trying to convince him to hire her as a member of his criminal organization.
Crime Alley’s new social worker. A bright eyed Midwestern transplant from some tiny speck of a place that only qualified as a city because there was nothing bigger in a hundred miles in any direction to claim otherwise. The new social worker who had a Psy D. and three masters degrees and who had graduated Valedictorian. The one that had high paying private gigs lined up all over the country with the offering companies fighting over her.
The one who had, apparently, decided to take a shit job in Gotham’s shoddy social services department instead. The one that got kicked to Crime Alley - which was its own division despite technically being a small neighborhood in the grand scheme of things - within her first month. Supposedly for the sole purpose of scaring her off or getting her killed for all the questions she was asking and secret dealings she was sticking her nose into.
That social worker.
“I’m gonna need you to run this by me again.” Jason said, never so grateful for the voice modulator in his helmet as he was in that moment. It stripped out the bewilderment that had bled through into his words and made him sound stoic instead.
“I’d like to work for you.” The social worker - one Dr. Jasmine Nightingale - repeated primly. Back straight, clothes neat - if skewing more on the librarian side of professional - expression confident and hopeful. Completely and utterly oblivious of how fucking insane she sounded. “I was told that you’re the person in charge of Crime Alley.”
He resisted the urge to scrub at his face. It’d just look weird with his helmet on and not do anything to actually settle him in that moment anyway. “I understood that part.”
“Look, Doc,” She earned a doctorate and she was crazy enough to waltz into the office of one of Gotham’s most powerful Crime Lords, he’d be respectful about using her proper title at least, even if he suspected she was ten pounds of crazy in a five pound bag. “You’re going to have to tell me why. I was under the impression the only reason you ended up dumped on our end of the city ws because you wouldn’t play ball. But now you want to sign up for my crew?”
Nightingale frowned a little at that.
“Is that what people are saying?”
“What else are they gonna say?” Jason answered, leaning back in his seat, “Head of the department only dumps Crime Alley on folks he don’t like. And everyone knows he doesn’t like anyone that can’t or won’t play his game by his rules.”
“Alright, well. I’ll give you that.” Nightingale conceded, “Payne doesn’t like me. The feeling’s mutual. But for the record,” She added giving him a wry smile, as if sharing wry smiles with Red Hood was just something people did, “I asked to be assigned to the Park Row and Bowery neighborhoods.”
“You wanted to work here.”
“Yes.”
“Bullshit.”
Nightingale laughed. It was a bright sound. Not especially clear or pretty, but warm and welcoming in a way that carefully calculated giggles or overdone guffaws couldn’t be. Something with real and honest amusement in it, that encouraged those nearby to laugh along. Not the kind of involuntary, nervous chuckling people tended to slip into when they thought they had pissed someone that scared them off.
She just wasn’t intimidated by him at all, was she?
Behind his helmet, Jason found himself smiling. Just a bit.
“I’m serious.” She assured, blue-green eyes meeting the dark stare of his helmet without a moment of hesitation. He watched as she brushed a lock of her bright red hair behind her ear and out of the way. She’d woven it all into a practical, neat braid but a few sly pieces had snuck out to bounce around her. Gilding her quiet professionalism with a playful charm that worked well with her academia but make it cottagecore kindergarten teacher aesthetic.
“I’ll admit, Gotham wasn’t part of my plan when I first graduated. Time and choices take you funny places sometimes.” She plucked an invisible bit of lint off her soft blue cardigan, not nervous but absent as her gaze went distant for a moment. Thinking back on the events that had led her to his fine city. In a blink, those sharp eyes were back to focusing entirely on him. “But Gotham is where I am now, and I want to help.”
She looked at him, a serious, determined expression settling easily on her face. “The city as a whole has so much chaos and crime breaking out all the time.” No censure or horror in her voice, just a neutral fact to be observed. “But where the rest of the city has millions of dollars poured into it by various foundations or charities run by the Waynes, Park Row is largely ignored.”
Jason watched as steeliness sharpened her gaze, the blue-green shifting from the shine of a bird’s wing to the warning hue of something poisonous and deadly. “No one deserves that. No one.” Her chin tilted up, proud but not imperious. “So yes, I want to work here. There are people in Park Row and the Bowery who need help and I refuse to let any of them feel like they are going to be ignored.”
Jason considered her.
Really looked at her. Pealing back his initial off handed impression of her as some clueless transplant in over her head with no idea of what she was doing or what she was poking her nose into to find the real woman beneath. Her confident poise, her clear unshakable belief, her unflinching willingness to look danger in the eye and not blink. The tense curve of her frown, the lines of pain at the corners of her eyes, the simmering anger beneath it all. There was an edge to her, too. Something sharp and dangerously well hidden by the cardigan and folksy charm of her accent.
It was personal for the woman before him, Jason realized. Maybe not Crime Alley specifically, but something about the whole situation. The treatment the neighborhood and its residents received from the city at large, from those even beyond it.
Crime Alley wasn’t a place that received much in the way of charitable thought. The average joe with their house in Somerset and job at some corporate shithole hating every second of their life but thinking at least I don’t live in Crime Alley. Those asshole hoity-toites in city hall throwing money around equally between shit that’d get them re-elected and their off-shore slush funds in the Caymens doing their damn level best to pretend the black mark on the other end of the city just didn’t exist. Bruce, flooding the entire city with charitable programs and carefully constructed infrastructures shying away from the manifested grief and trauma that was the place he watched his parents get murdered.
For the most part no one from outside of the Alley gave a shit about the Alley other than as a place to avoid at all costs. And most of the time those natives that manages to claw their way out into better and brighter lives didn’t ever turn to glance back. Orpheus could have learned a thing or to from an ex-Alley Kid who managed to eek out a steady 9-to-5 and move to Burnley.
And something about that seemed to piss Dr. Jasmine Nightingale Psy. D right the fuck off.
He could see why Bill said he liked her enough to let her in.
“Alright.” He said, tilting his head, watching the woman seated across from him carefully, “Still doesn’t explain what you’re doing here. Why you’re trying to get on my payroll.”
“I’m not trying to get on your payroll.” She said, some of the glinting edge softening, but the steel remaining. Strong and unyielding. “I’m trying to get into your community outreach program.”
Jason thanked god and all the saints once again for the gift of his helmet. That baby had saved his ass more times than he could count both by keeping his head in one piece and keeping his stupefied expressions wrapped up and hidden from view. Dr. Nightingale was one hell of a woman to make him have to rely on that fact twice in one conversation.
“Wasn’t aware that was something I had.”
Nightingale, not fortunate enough to have a full face covering helmet of her own, had nothing to hide her stupefied expression behind. Jason had a feeling she might have removed it to make sure he saw even if she did though. She looked like she had caught him eating glue like it was a cheese stick.
“Yes you do.” She said, sounding deeply confused but unshakable confident in what she was saying. “I’ve seen it. The soup kitchens, the shelters, the collection boxes for donating old clothes, the after school day care.” Nightingale ticked off on her fingers, “I’ve lived here for less than two weeks and I’ve lost count of all the things I’ve seen setup to help people struggling in the area that I’ve been very reliably informed you and your organization are behind.”
Oh.
Those.
“Those aren’t part of some community outreach program.” He said, “We are simply locals offering services for our neighbors.”
He watched as her caught-him-eating-glue expression shifted into one that said she’d stumbled upon him licking electrical sockets for a mid-day pick-me-up instead. He had to give it to her, the woman was not afraid to let one of the most dangerous men in the city know she thought he was a fucking idiot.
“Let me see if I understand this right.” She said, and he appreciated that there wasn’t any kind of condescension in her voice, even though she very clearly thought he’d been dropped on his head as a baby. Possibly from the top of a three story building. “You have a large group of people working together to plan, organize and execute multiple services in your area - your community, if you will - that provide aid and support to those that otherwise would not receive it. Reaching out with your available time and resources to offer these services, that you provide. For free.”
Alright, Jason got it. He had stumbled ass backwards into creating a community outreach program. But he wasn’t just going to let her think she won this one. He was Red Hood, he had a reputation to uphold here.
“What makes you think any of that is free?” He tilted his head at just the right angle, the one that cast shadows across the planes of his helmet and made him look hell-touched and terrifying. “Just because we don’t charge money, doesn’t mean there isn’t a price to pay.”
Dr. Nightingale, dressed like a damn kindergarten teacher, laughed at him.