#but was about damian interacting with amnesiac bruce

[fancyfade]

ugggg in the bruce wayne amnesia era and its such a shame damian doesn't interact with him (or with alfred) about it because alfred is convinced bruce has to be free of all his traces of his past life as batman to be happy but most of bruce's kids (all of them really) only are his kids because of bruce's life as batman. their connection to him is via batman.

and most of them are adults, but Damian's not. he's eleven. got to come home and find out that you can't tell your dad anything about you because it's viewed as something that would inherently ruin his happiness.

[brucewaynehater101]

do NOT kill Tim

stop being mean to tim in your fics when Bruce is right there to be mean to

let Tim run off and get into shenanigans with his friends while Gotham burns

maybe give tim amnesia and somehow gets reported as dead on a yj mission and his friends help him recover and accidentally on purpose don't mention anything about Gotham except Cass who is his sister and their friend so she's allowed and she sees Tim happy for the first time in so long that she goes along with letting Tim remember, or not, in his own time

and maybe he does remember, when they're in space and too far from Gotham for Tim to immediately rush back and try to fix things because fixing things, trying to help, has always been his first impulse, and he's convinced to wait, to see if anyone tries reaching out to him instead

and he becomes resigned as only cass reaches out, as the rest of the bats just accept that he's dead, without even a body, with just one line in a mission report, a mission report that they didn't even read, the bat computer just noted key words and updated red robin's profile accordingly in its system and no one noticed until someone mentioned that red robin had no patrol routes assigned for awhile and then the profile is brought up

and in the meantime space shenanigans for yj, including the retired ones, and cass who wants her brother to be happy

I mean... you're 100% fair in that I should emotionally beat up Bruce instead in my fics. I do have one where Tim leaves the Bats/Gotham. He has a goodbye conversation with Dick, Jason, and Damian, tries to have one with Bruce, and leaves a video/note for Alfred and Babs. I'd love to chat more about what he does afterwards if anyone wants to know more.

So... I have one fic where he leaves the Bats. There :)

As far as the rest of your ask, I'm so vibing with the amnesia. Let Tim get into wild adventures with his friends (family) and have Cass stop by to say hello. Maybe Tim goes to see her a bunch since he's no longer stuck in Gotham (if Cass is still based in Hong Kong).

I also absolutely love the idea where he gets his memories back in space and spends the entire trip back to Earth processing his thoughts. Should he go back? It's all he's known, but should he try to help out the Waynes some more? Tim is still doing good. He's still helping people. He's just no longer helping specifically Gotham and the Bats.

The part where the Bats don't notice he's dead is cruel and so delicious. Very tasty angst.

I'd also kill for Cass's POV in this (maybe a few chapters), where she discovers Tim is amnesiac, starts to realize the other Bats don't notice or seem to care about Tim (it's hard to understand the way you or a family member is being treated is wrong if that's "normal"), has her own growth and realizations about the Bats, and has complicated feelings about loving the people who are usually good to her but usually bad to Tim (in this AU).

I don't know as much about Cass's canon, but I would be interested to hear more about how her canon could or could not apply to this.

Then let the Bats have a meltdown that Tim is "dead" including their own warped perceptions of how they DO care/love Tim. Maybe they blame Tim for being distant, blame themselves, and try to hunt down who killed Tim. Let them remember certain interactions with Tim that RR remembers differently. Let the Bats be grey in their relationship with Tim because they never did mean to hurt him [they never realized that they did].

Just fun complexities of dysfunctional families :)

Moving on, let Tim be free from the Bats as they all collapse and chat about him. He can have his space adventures far from the chaos as they implode (perhaps the Bats try to take Gotham with them, and the JL has to get involved).

[laufire]

what’s the amnesia Jason fic about?

oh, that's a fun one.

(just to get this out of the way: I came up with this idea BEFORE gotham war even started ñlkasjdfasf)

the premise is that, at some point previous to the story, jason was in a fic with some supervillain that utterly broke his psyche, to the point where it needed someone to go into his mind to heal him. and bruce, aided by the justice leaguer who did it, took some... creative licenses along the way.

cue the present. jason last-name-not-todd goes to gotham university on a wayne scholarship. he's looking into biochemistry. he's in a theatre group (they're doing pygmalion). he works (suicide prevention hotline). things seem fine.

things seem fine but some weird shit is going on. with him. with the weird dreams he has. with the weird people sometimes popping in and out of his life.

at one point jason gets some help from an unexpected source, and recovers his memories. then all bets are off.

(timeline-wise I've been thinking of setting this before damian's appearance. that's a little tricky because I want steph to appear -some of what I first wrote from this fic were amnesiac!jason-steph interactions-, but talia has her own part to play and in this story she has an obvious, really good reason to NOT want to take damian to bruce, so all of that can be delayed)

also featuring: vicki vale.

ask me about my wips!

[stxleslyds]

You always seem down on the idea of the Batfam. I mean, it is hard to take seriously when writers make Bruce hostile or downright abusive towards his kids, or when Batfam members never interact. But do you think the concept itself is good, and it's just been the victim of bad writing? Or do you think the Batfam is a bad idea that can never work?

Hi there Anon! Thank you for the ask!

Hmm, this is a difficult question. Maybe I can answer this better if I do it in parts because the concept of “Batfamily” is used in different ways currently. A way to separate them can be, DC’s Batfamily, Fandom’s Batfamily and Fandom’s Batfamily lore being introduced in comics’ canon.

DC’s Batfamily:

My rejection of this version of Batfamily comes from all angles, it is not a good concept within comics lore anymore, it’s badly written and used to hide and move on from truly horrendous actions done by Bruce towards the rest of the family, and DC uses the concept of “Batfamily” that fandom has become so attached to, so they can profit off of it without writing anything of real essence with it.

Why did I say that the Batfamily isn’t a good concept anymore? Well, because the Batfamily that I first came across in comics included, Bruce, Dick, Alfred, Barbara, Tim and Cassandra. It was rather small and their books interconnected and had pretty solid relationships with one another. Dick and Tim got along and spent time together, Barbara mentored Cass so she could become Batgirl and so on and so forth. The family was smaller and more connected. But they still had problems and bad habits then. So, I liked them as a group of people that worked together and the name they received was “Batfamily” as a way for DC to profit from it.

Right now, the Batfamily is huge, I don’t know if you have seen those splash pages with all the members of it for Rebirth and Infinite Frontier, but those promotional pages were crazy big, characters like Harley and Clownhunter are now considered part of the “Batfamily” and all that. Then there is the kind of characters like Cass, Steph and Kate who are all connected to Batman but that haven’t been appearing in books for very long, so putting them on that page really feels like DC is trying to prove that their “Batfamily” actually has women on it, but it’s just for show.

And then there is Dick, Jason, Tim and Damian, the most recognizable faces of the Batfamily aside from Bruce and Alfred (but Alfred is dead now so he doesn’t really count), all of them have had issues with Bruce or are indifferent to the existence of one another. Yes, Tom Taylor has included Tim in Dick’s book but here is the thing, it feels like he put him there just to make fans shut up about the lack of content with both of them acting as they used to do. But its false and lazy, Taylor just brought Tim to the book but we don’t get to see Tim and Dick interact in ways that can explain why they drifted off, it kinda seems like all those years where Dick and Tim were pulled apart never happened to DC and that makes me think “cash grab”. I would have loved to see them interact again if it meant that we would have some solid story for them to develop their relationship once more.

At the end of Rebirth, Damian was pissed off at Bruce and they had a fight and Damian left the manor completely. Bruce beat up Jason, then gave him a hug but still told him that he was banned from Gotham and all that abuse and manipulation was swept under the rug when DC came out with Urban Legends: Cheer, all they did with that story is lie and made-up stories about Jason wanting Bruce to go on a killing spree so Gotham can finally be the home to his beloved family (lies, lies, lies).

On top of all that we have the neglect, abuse and manipulation that Bruce had going on with Dick, ever since Bruce manipulated Dick into joining Spyral his actions haven’t faced any consequences (the family still believes that Dick was the one who lied about dying). And as recently as the end of Rebirth, Dick suffered from a head injury that left him amnesiac and Bruce absolutely didn’t care enough to look after him when he was so vulnerable and alone. DC had the audacity of having Bruce say that he was looking after Dick while Dick went from one villain manipulating and hurting him to another, and if we look at Batman’s run, we can see that he spent some of that time in a weird pit or playing catch the pussy with Selina in a tropical island.

So, taking all those things into account, I honestly believe that the Batfamily is a concept that absolutely does not belong in comics. If it were to be taken seriously then DC should come up with (organic, not forced) stories that make these characters connect once again, but they have to be careful, just because they can connect it doesn’t mean that everyone gets along and they have group chats and eat dinner together of Fridays, that would be a blatant lie and just too out there for their kind of dynamic, so, they should take things slow, start re-building what once was an make it better (if they want to make it work and feel like less of a cash grab).

I heard that there is a book with Cass and Steph being mentored as Batgirls by Barbara coming out in December, that to me is a good thing, what was done in Robin #5 was awful, Jason didn’t have or want to be there, Tim, what the hell was Tim doing there? The only ones that have gotten along with Damian and have had a solid relationship with him were Dick and Steph. Dick had a very nice moment with Damian in that issue, but Steph didn’t, they preferred to have Jason wanting to hug Damian instead (what the actual hell was that?).

Fandom’s Batfamily:

Fandom is a place where people can take any concept from anywhere and transform it into whatever they please. This fandom is just like any other in that matter, but I have noticed that sometimes the Batfamily Fandom tends to blur the lines between what’s fanon and canon. Their lore is so deep and established among people that they sometimes (willingly or not) make new readers or other people believe that how things and perceived in fandom is how things actually are in comics, and that is a huge problem.

Things like “Dick sent Jason to Arkham when the Joker was just a cell away”, “Jason has pit madness and when he gets mad his eyes turn glowy green”, “Dick was a horrendous brother to Jason before Jason died”, “Jason would be good friends with Tim and Cass”, “Jason is the only one that sees the world differently from Bruce and the other robins because he is the only one that comes from a life with no luxury” and so on and on and on…

All of those things are sometimes treated as the absolute truth by fandom and no matter how many times people have debunked and explained that those things aren’t part of comics’ canon because they are simply not true, fandom stills treats those things as the basis of their Batfamily lore.

That lore would be actually fascinating if people didn’t lose sight so easily of the fact that at the end of the day none of that lore can be applied to comics’ canon.

When you enter this fandom things can be extremely confusing and the way some of the characters are characterized are completely different to their canon characterizations, I knew that the Dick fandom was writing about was not real, but I had no idea that Tim being a coffee addict that hasn’t slept in five months and is an absolute genius in everything and anything that he does was completely out of character for him, I just thought that was true to his character in comics too. Something like that happened to me when I took a peek at Jason’s side of fandom, by that time I had read Red Hood/Arsenal, UtRH and New 52 RHatO (yeah in that order, Red Hood/Arsenal wasn’t finished yet though), with the already conflicting characterizations of those books, the first look that I had at fandom’s Jason confused me even more. After considering all those I decided that the Jason that I wanted to see and actually looked appealing to me was UtRH Jason.

Not all people in fandom read comics and that is ABSOLUTELY VALID, I have zero problems with people not liking the comic characterizations of the “Batfamily” characters, but that in itself also creates a rift between fans themselves.

Fandom’s Batfamily lore being introduced in comics’ canon:

This is obviously the intersection of the other two points and this is the biggest problem that I have with the Batfamily concept. The fandom lore has been leaking into comic’s canon for a while now but right now we are kinda drowning in it. Decisions that have been made recently in DC like, Jason giving up his guns, the group chats in Nightwing issues, the family dinners that were hinted at in Cheer #6, and Bruce having had at the ready a Red Hood suit for Jason with a Batman logo in its chest, have been proof enough that DC is planning on skipping any kind of solid writing for these characters to actually get along. We are never going to see these people sit down and talk about their differences and respect each other’s work ethics.

We are never going to get stories of actual essence that prove that these characters understand and care for each other, we are just going to be told that “all is good” and now everyone loves one another and they will build from there.

That is a problem for me.

-

And it also takes away duality from Gotham’s vigilantes, I know I say this too much but it’s the truth, putting all these characters under the ruling of Batman makes them all bland. Jason shouldn’t be part of any sort of group that involves Bruce! My god, I don’t want to see them interact anymore! Bruce has been absolute trash to Jason ever since he came back from the dead and I am tired of DC trying to make them be on good terms!

Jason and Bruce not getting along can co-exist with the fact that Jason isn’t a villain to Batman’s legendary hero. Jason is his own character, with his own morals and he doesn’t need a bat symbol on his chest or book logo to be relevant. Same with Dick, Tim and Barbara, let them be characters that can stand on their own because they have already done that!

Barbara as Oracle worked WITH Batman if she wanted, she had her own logo and had passed on the mantle of Batgirl because he had grown out of it.

Dick is Nightwing and has become an even better hero than Batman could even aspire to become, he has contacts with everyone in the DC universe, has led countless teams, he doesn’t NEED a batman logo on his book or to be constantly dragged back to him just to make the Bat more compelling.

Jason, my sweet Jason, he had his own logo! It was gorgeous and then Lobdell had the audacity to stamp a Batman logo in the middle of the book name and in Jason’s chest! Have we gone absolutely mad? Why did they do that? Lobdell’s constant back and forth with Jason and his feelings for Bruce, he respects him and he doesn’t, he kills and he doesn’t… each issue felt like a new take on the character! It was crazy!

And that has happened with everyone in the “family”. I will end this by saying that Bruce/Batman being at the centre of this “Batfamily” dynamic is the most laughable thing in the DC Universe. Batman isn’t family to any of the people that they constantly surround him with, he is a piece of shit.

Anyway Anon, I hope this answer doesn’t ruin your day and that you understand that even though I really don’t like the “Batfamily” concept, you and everyone else are allowed and encouraged to think differently!

Hope you have a marvellous day Anon!

[do-not-careissa]

Your Star Sapphire Jason is glorious, but if I have to say the truth I have a soft spot for your Blue Lanter Jason. Could I bother you with asking for a sequel/drabble/little thing? I'd like to know what's Bruce gonna do after seeing Jason again.

Aw , thank you ♥️ There won't be a sequel for that particular fic, it was a definite one shot for me. I saw what happened when I let myself keep writing my Sapphire fics, trying not to go off the rails again 😅

But as for what Bruce would probably do post-fic. Well for one probably a lot of internal freakout, trying to find a plausible explanation for the young man he saw at the diner with Clark that definitely looked mad sounded like his Jason. Something like that would likely unsettle him quite a bit, resulting in the constant back and forth in his mind of "but that's not possible, it can't be possible" and "you work with aliens, magic users, Green Lanterns, a demigoddess, what about your son not being dead ten years later isn't possible?" I tend to see Bruce as a very logic driven character (or at least, abiding by his own logic, not necessarily anyone else's), but something like that would force him to struggle with that a lot since now emotions are going to get involved whether he lets them or not. He's seeing his son, who's body he held in his arms, alive and well and grown with a blue ring on his finger and a baby under his care. That'd put anyone through hell emotionally, Bruce is no exception.

So he'd at some point dig up Jason's grave, a final bid for "I'm just imagining things, put Jason's face on that poor young man" only to find the coffin empty aside from the dirt, hole, broken belt buckle, and specks of blood. And he'd sprial even further, to the point where the rest of the family couldn't ignore what was happening and force him to step down from being Batman til he's better. Which obviously isn't going to happen until he has his answers and knows what happened, which isn't going to happen, or at least not for a good long while.

Maybe after awhile Damian finds him scouring through old records and newspapers searching for information on a missing and/or amnesiac boy, let's something slip, or is almost too tight lipped which has Bruce's bells ringing. Would Bruce follow Damian to see if Damian ever interacts with Jason? Ask him questions? Just waits him out? I wouldn't be too sure. A determined Bruce is hard to stop, a determined, emotional typhoon who just wants answers about his son Bruce would be even harder. One of those, he lets them think they've stopped him or convinced him to drop it, only to slip out later type of deal.

I just find Bruce to be a very obsessive character, once he's keyed into something he's not really willing to let it go, no matter what anyone says, at least that's the interpretation I've grown to have after my random comics readings.

[bigskydreaming]

I’m almost more bothered by fics that don’t take an actively antagonistic stance towards Dick’s character, because what’s so often viewed as a GOOD storyline for Dick in fanfics is just like.....100% connected to my issues with fanon.

What I mean is this:

So many Batfam fics, even when they think they’re being kind or generous to Dick’s character, treat any relationship Dick develops or demonstrates with Jason in-story as Dick’s redemption arc, for being a shitty brother/person before a certain point.

And then on top of that, a ton of fics that include all the way through Damian by their starting point, then proceed to use any relationship (or attempt at one) between Dick and Tim.....as Dick’s redemption arc, for being a shitty brother/person to Tim at the Robin-Red Robin transition.

And then on top of THAT, you have the Batfam fics that focus on post-Spyral interactions with his family as....Dick’s redemption arc for being a shitty brother/person there, and during the Ric Grayson era we had ‘fix-it fic’ after fic whose idea of fixing it was picking things up at some point after Dick got his memories back and then proceeding to write Dick’s redemption arc for Ric being a shitty brother/person there. And even going all the way back to Bruce and Dick’s era of estrangement before Tim came along, there’s still absurdly so many fics over the years dedicated to....Dick redeeming himself in other characters’ eyes for that chasm with absolutely no effort in the same fics shown towards having Bruce work towards any kind of remption for his own behavior.

Historically speaking, the vast majority of fics tagged as Dick Grayson, stretching back years and still very much present now as well, are almost predominantly ALL somehow some kind of redemption arc for Dick.....

Specifically in regards to events and dynamics which have absolutely no basis (or at most an extremely skewed and one-sided one) in the source material. 

In fact, in the majority of most of the situations Dick’s being ‘redeemed’ for in fanfics, he either did the complete OPPOSITE of what he’s being punished/forced to make up for in fics, such as how his efforts in reaching out to Jason despite his own understandable bitterness stands in direct contradiction of the years of neglect and bitterness towards Jason that fics posit and theorize existed purely so that he has something TO redeem himself for in fics.....

Or then other times in the source material, he’s the literal actual victim of the things that he’s not only being held solely accountable and in need of redemption for in fics, like when he was beaten into going undercover for the sake of his family.....and then has to redeem himself for that in his family’s eyes......or when he was alienated, neglected and gaslit by his family while amnesiac.....and then has to redeem himself for that in his family’s eyes.....

And even in the cases where its SAID within a fic’s narrative (or more accurately, usually its said in the comments sections of fics as fic authors respond to people being disgusted with Dick by saying ‘no don’t be too hard on him’ and offering up justifications for Dick’s actual actions and understanding for his POV that for some reason never make it into the actual text of fics), like, even then, at most these fics TELL us that the flaws of Dick’s that they’re focusing on are understandable and its just human of him to be resentful of Jason as Robin, or overwhelmed and grief-stricken when he made Damian Robin at Tim’s expense, or traumatized and not thinking clearly when he ‘agreed’ to go undercover at Spyral.....

But meanwhile, what the fics actually SHOW us, beyond a few half-hearted defenses of Dick that usually are not at all substantiated by any other characters.....is Dick remorsefully doing the work of making up for the things he did so terribly, terribly wrong and that there’s actually no excuse for.

With this showing being a lot more evident and focused-upon than we ever see fics show Jason working towards earning Tim’s forgiveness and trust for almost killing him, or Damian doing the same, fics just skip past these things entirely to say ‘oh they’re better now’ but like....with Dick....its like the only storyline a ton of writers have any interest in writing for Dick....

Is a redemption arc.

Actively focusing on and SHOWING Dick putting in the work of being apologetic, remorseful, self-loathing, and absolutely committed to doing better by his siblings even if they never actually forgive him - with whether or not he can eventually ‘earn’ his way to a positive relationship with them far from a given - and any and all of his positive attributes or the positives of his actual relationships with various characters all but completely ignored or glossed over, to keep the focus entirely on Dick learning to do better.....

Than the crimes or slights against his siblings that authors first manufactured or exaggerated or took completely out of context, just to HAVE a reason for Dick to need to do better in the first place.

As I’ve said many times before, anyone is free to do whatever they want with fanfic, its an innately transformative medium, but its always going to be significant and worth attention in my mind, that so much of the transformation from the source material when it comes to Dick Grayson is entirely focused around and committed to transforming him from a hero that everyone loves and respects, a guy that always does his best to go above and beyond for family even when he has understandable reasons not to, and the literal inspiration for almost every second generation hero out there, including his own successors......

Into a guy that most people can’t stand, regard as irrelevant to their own careers let alone anyone worth looking up to, and constantly letting people down, especially his family.

All while there’s little to no attention paid to all the reasons in the source material that other characters most definitely have things they’ve said or done to Dick Grayson that need or deserve redeeming for.

Like the physical violence every single member of his family except Duke has inflicted on him at some point.

Or the victim blaming that’s so ingrained into his storylines and reader receptions of his storylines that even the fics that tackle redeeming Jason, Tim, etc for their behavior towards Dick post-Spyral limit this particular redemption to ‘we’re sorry we treated you badly when we didn’t know all the facts’ instead of ‘we’re sorry we treated you badly, full stop’ and ‘we’re sorry we passed judgment without even TRYING to know what all the facts were’ and ‘we’re sorry we display so little interest in your life or your traumas that even now when we’ve been informed you actually died and had to be forced into pretending to stay dead, we have zero interest in exploring if there’s anything else we might be missing if we could miss out on the whole ‘oh you really DID die’ part in the first place, and forget about us actually owning and apologizing for the specifics of how our behavior towards you was unacceptable even if we HAD been right in our interpretation of events.’

Or when mentions of the slutshaming and victim-blaming he endured during the Tarantula and Mirage storylines are limited to just that....mentions made of offscreen characters like Babs or the Titans.....with pretty much no stories I can think of, existing as ‘redemption arcs’ that tackle those characters actually working to redeem themselves for their behavior and trying to earn back Dick’s broken trust in them. Its usually just Jason and/or others finding out, telling Dick ‘hey your friends shouldn’t have done that either’ and then going off and murdering Mirage and Tarantula, the end, because....that fixes everything?

And forget about Bruce redeeming himself for his behavior - the way he works to put in the effort and fix things in so many ‘Jason returns to the family’ fics - but even when actual mention is made of the things Bruce HAS done wrong to Dick or needs redeeming for, its mostly just waved off as ancient history that he’s remorseful about but there’s no apparent need or effort to focus on Bruce putting that remorseful energy into action and actively on the page trying to bridge the gap he created in SO MANY storylines, again and again and again. ‘Bruce is just like that,’ a lot of stories shrug, about the time Bruce made Dick actually feel unwelcome in his own home and forced him to be the one to leave, unlike the way ‘its unacceptable for Dick to be like this’ energy is applied to stories about Dick forcing Tim to leave Wayne Manor....an action that has to be invented for a story’s purposes, of course, given that in the actual source story, Dick relocated himself and Damian to the penthouse anyway, and Wayne Manor was open and available to Tim and Dick never so much as implied otherwise.

Or look at how the adoption issue so often plays out....with it treated as though Bruce finally adopting Dick in adulthood just ‘fixes’ all the angst before that point, like it just overwrites everything he felt or experienced before and up until that.....with very little fandom energy paid to neither just castigating Bruce for not adopting Dick earlier or acting like adoption is a magic all-better now band-aid, but rather examining that both these things can coexist, and Dick can be happy and relieved and pleased to finally have the adoption he not-so-secretly wanted, even if only in adulthood, but that doesn’t mean the mental and emotional upset of his later teen years when he really, really, really could have used that declaration of being family rather than just a ward....like, there’s room for that to have still taken a toll and be worthy of awareness and regret on Bruce’s part, not for taking so long to adopt Dick, but for the damage Dick felt and suffered through BECAUSE of it. 

Its not even about vilifying or punishing Bruce for this, because ironically, like....redemption arcs aren’t actually supposed to be just about punishment or whatever? Its about acknowledging where wrong was done and GETTING what that means for the person who was wronged.....even if it can’t be undone.

People can get this when its Dick being written as having the redemption arc.

So where the hell is this understanding of what actual redemption MEANS, when its Dick that other characters have things to make up for?

The funny, ironic, cognitive dissonant thing about Dick Grayson in fanfics, is the vast majority of his appearances and storylines all somehow come back towards being his redemption arc in some way or form.....

For the made-up or exaggerated fanon crimes applied to him in fic, but that HE’S usually the actual recipient of in canon.

See, its not an obsession with canon that’s the reason for the disconnect between Dick Grayson fans and the takes favored by fans of most other characters.

Its the fact that the transformative energy of fanfiction, in his case, so often is utilized to give HIM reason to tackle the redemption arcs that OTHER characters owe HIM, but that so many of these fans don’t WANT to write their own faves being subjected to.....because they’re fans of these characters as heroes. They have no interest in reading or writing their favorite characters redeeming themselves for actions or behavior they personally don’t view as in character for them.

.....with the cognitive dissonant part in particular, being the way so many of these exact same fans turn around and express shock and bewilderment that Dick’s fans are simlarly uninterested in wanting to read nothing but their favorite character redeeming himself for actions or behavior we personally don’t view as in character for him....because it usually isn’t, according to the original stories BEFORE fanfic transforms him from victim of other beloved characters into victimizer of them instead.

And lol, many of us don’t actually want to see him as victim of other beloved heroes either! We’re in agreement there! Its why we come to fanfic instead of canon in the first place....to find stories where he’s not casually and regularly mistreated by other characters we like. But instead we usually only find stories that take everything people don’t want to see other characters doing to him, and making him do it to others. That’s not an improvement for us, lol! That’s just taking one problem and exchanging it for another. 

Flipping the script to make Dick the victimizer instead of other characters only fixes things if the only concern is making sure those characters aren’t seen as victimizers.

The really annoying part is how so many people can be so clear and cognizant of not wanting this for their own faves....yet are surprised, dismissive and disdainful of Dick’s fans....expressing the EXACT SAME FEELINGS.....about our own fave.

[mercurator98]

Many people have two main points about Duke.

1.) He is the new one, and thinks everyone in the family is crazy.

2.) Therefore he is the sane one.

There are a couple problems with these perspectives that I find hilarious. First off: in terms of insanity, most new members regard the family they join as nuts. Tim did in his early robin run, Jason has moments of self clarity. Stephanie has an entire dialogue of how messed up the family is in her head constantly.

I get it. New person joins family of vigilantes. Automatic reaction is "these people are crazy"

But to make that the pillar of Duke's interactions wastes him. He is such a detailed character. He is impulsive and compassionate and he's a kid. He's a little older than robin and much younger than Steph and he isn't used to this. I've seen him protraited as the new kid simultaneously assuming he has Bruce's support. He basically doesnt though. In current comics canon, Duke has as little support as Tim and Damian. Everyone is writing fics about the neglect, yet seems to be forgetting a major place of free real estate.

I recommend reading we are robin, and all star batman (the recent ones, not the old ones) it shines a great light on Duke's character.

I know fanon makes exceptions, but I have seen people say they can't get attached to him. But if you do some reading, you start to realize how truly similar he is to the fanon versions of the boys, and the canon versions for that matter.

As for the only sane member, I go back to my point that he is very young. He went after the flower villian with an amnesiac and a baseball bat. No mask. He started to lead the we are robin movement

He's a leader, just like the other bats. He could lead a team, he has before. It should be acknowledged that he isn't batclan. He's batfam.

[dilfdoctordoom]

What were Bette's first impressions of Selina, Vicki, Talia, Julie Madison, and Silver?

I want you to know that I adore all your asks. Mainly because I cannot shut up about Bette Kane, but also, ‘cause they’re just really nice.

ANYWAYS. LONG ONE AHEAD, SO LET’S GO.

Selina:

It’s probably important to remember that Bette first meets Selina when she’s, like, eleven & Bat-Girl & Catwoman is trying to rob a museum. You know, normal stuff

Bette’s not even mad at the criminal activity, she’s mad that Selina called her adorable and pinched her cheeks when she was trying to be a very serious crime fighter

So Bette’s maybe a little biased against her. It’s not anything serious, it’s just that Bette mostly remembers Selina from fighting her & unlike Dick, she wasn’t really exposed to her much outside of that environment, until she & Bruce were in a serious relationship

Bette & her do form a better dynamic, but that takes a lot of time & honestly it’s more due to Holly’s influence than anything else

She does like that Selina legitimately loves Bruce. I mean, Bette’s not gonna accept anything else, to be honest, she adors her older cousin & she just wants that idiot to be happy

Also very much approves that Catwoman seems to care about the assorted Batkids

Again, Bette... very much knows Catwoman, but not Selina. And, yeah, that’s gonna affect how they interact a lot

I mean, Bette approves of her more than she approves of others, but, eh, Bruce’s choice in woman is all over the place, so. Hm.

Doesn’t really like working with her, to be honest, but that’s... Bette doesn’t like working with anyone that she & Kathy fought. That’s not on Selina, that’s on childhood trauma

Vicki:

Bette really likes Vicki

She’d met her a few times before Bruce & Vicki were together, when she was way younger & Vicki was just... nice ginger lady at galas who approved of Bette’s mischief & promised not to tell anyone. 10/10, great approval rate from local idiot

When Bette’s in her teens, she interns at the Gazette for a few months & Vicki helps her out a lot there. Like, Bette never makes a career out of journalism, but she’s a damn good photographer (blame a childhood of hanging around crime scenes & gathering evidence for that one), plus she always had a way of getting good leads on stories... interesting

So, yes, Bette likes Vicki. She thinks she’s awesome. A great reporter, a nice person...

She just. Doesn’t approve of Bruce and Vicki. As a couple.

Mainly because Bette thinks that whoever Bruce is with should know about Batman, but Vicki doesn’t??? So, like, Bette can’t get behind that. It’s absolutely not Vicki’s fault & is more to do with Bruce’s trust issues & Bette judges the hell out of him for it

Bruce & Vicki do obviously break up & Vicki goes back to being her favourite reporter

I think that when Bette becomes Hawkfire, Vicki does find out about it! They have, like, a Ben Urich/Matt Murdock kind of dynamic, I guess?

I’m definitely just saying this because I think Vicki Vale would make an excellent addition to Bette’s supporting cast. If Bette even had a supporting cast

Talia:

You know, I put myself through the torturous experience of Morrison’s Batman recently, so let’s get into this

Now, obviously, no matter what, I’m not gonna act like the r*pe thing is canon. It is not, nor will it ever be, in my mind. Let’s just establish that, first

Because Bette’s got other reasons to dislike Talia! Yay!

Like, according to Batman Inc, Talia... ordered the hit on Kathy. Kinda think that this might have been faked by Kathy herself, but since Bette didn’t know her aunt faked her death... Bette hates Talia for this

And Bette... Bette doesn’t hate people. She usually doesn’t have it in her, but all the clues point to Talia hiring Bronze Tiger to murder the one person to truly, unconditionally love her. She can’t help but loathe her for it

Talia’s not the biggest fan of Bette, but that’s mainly because, while she never assassinated Batwoman, she did have her suspicions about her & she hasn’t completely ruled Bette out as an associate of Kathy’s

They, uh, both realize they’re wrong about the other, but Bette’s well into her twenties by then & it’s like, there’s too much history for them to ever truly reconcile

Talia does respect & appreciate how ride or die Bette is with Damian from the get-go. She likes knowing that her son has another person in his corner no matter what happens

Bette’s never not gonna be impressed by Talia. Like, even when she hates her guts... Talia’s a fucking badass. End of conversation.

But honestly, out of everyone on this list, Bette & Talia have the worst relationship. There’s a lot of bad blood between them & while they can work together for Bruce/Damian’s sake, they won’t like it

Julie Madison:

Bette & Julie never truly get to know each other

Bette first meets her when she’s dating amnesiac Bruce & that’s, like, a whole other thing that Bette’s finding hella stressful (seriously... imagine having to explain the Kane family history. Dear god)

She thinks she’s sweet though!!!

Like, these two never had a chance to form any sort of dynamic, because Bette wasn’t around for when Julie & Bruce were first together & when she finally was there, the relationship was pretty shortlived? And surprisingly, Bette doesn’t keep in contact with all of Bruce’s exes, Viciki excluded

Silver St Cloud:

Bette meets Silver in the socialite circle & they’re more aquaintances than anything else for years

They don’t spend much time together, until Bruce drops the bomb that Silver discovered he was Batman & that they broke up

Bette’s respect for this woman goes up considerably. Like, Bette was pretty indifferent to her before, but now? Damn. Not just everybody discovers Batman’s secret identity

Again, though, Bette doesn’t keep in contact with her cousin’s exes. They meet a few times at events & stuff & make small talk, but never really go beyond that

Bette does think that Silver is easily one of, like, Bruce’s best relationships, if that makes sense? And she’s kinda sad they didn’t work out

She wouldn’t have minded Silver joining the family

When Bette’s an adult, in charge of the family company, she always hires Silver to plan events, because that woman is a miracle worker. Bette honestly doesn’t know how she functioned without her, oh my god

Silver knows vaguely that Bette’s a vigilante, but she doesn’t make an effort to know which one. She wants to respect her privacy

These two never get particularly close, but they’re friendly & Silver’s definitely got Bette’s respect

[fishfingersandjellybabies]

So during Bruce’s amnesia arc, is their a reason no one told him about his kids. In one of your fics it said Alfred warned everyone not to tell. Also how did he get his memory back?

I don’t know/remember if there was ever a true reason given as to why he wasn’t told. But that’s comics for you, I suppose. At the same time, the kids all had interactions with amnesiac Bruce, and never mentioned being his kids themselves. (Well, maybe not all, but I know for sure Dick and Jason did, and Damian watched him from afar.)

I think I wrote it in a fic, or maybe it was in comics, I honestly don’t remember haha, but I think a general reason they didn’t mention it to him was a) they met him through Batman, and since he didn’t remember being Batman, how exactly would they fit into his life? and B) they saw that he was happy. Happy and safe and that’s all they wanted for him. So they would continue his mission, while he was safe and helping people in other ways elsewhere.

He got his memories back in a weird, stupid comic book way. Some threat showed up (the Joker I think??) and he as Bruce was kind of wrapped up in it, and then they ended up in the batcave with his then girlfriend Julie. There was some machine that basically forcibly put his memories back? (I can’t remember, it was in the Scott Snyder run and oh boy by that time my hatred of SS stories was RAMPANT so I barely paid any attention because it was dumb.)

[fancyfade]

👀 👩‍🏭 💖

👀 Do you have any WIPs that you would never let see the light of day? If yes, what are they about?

First DC fanfic I wrote, which I wrote when I had just gotten into batfam and I had only read like the first 12 issues of nightwing (1996), some birds of prey (1998) and Robin: Son of Batman. Based off the crossover with amensiac bruce in R:SoB I thought that Damian should get to interact with amnesiac Bruce. It totally doesn’t fit in my current timeline because it doesn’t take into account anything else going on at the time and I would recharacterize some people. I might revisit the idea later but it would be way different

👩‍🏭 If one of your fics was going to get you arrested, which one and why?

probably one of the ones that involves googling “crime thing in detail” so i can explain it. i know recently for an (as of yet unpublished) fic I was googling how to break open windows because I couldn’t describe it.

💖 What do you like most about your own writing?

hmm this is going to be hard because I am very egotistical :P

I’ll say my dedication to multiple POVs and making sure to get the characters different from each other, including characters who aren’t my fave I’ll still put a lot of effort in and try to understand why their fans do like them so they come across as authentic.

ty for asks! (asks from here: link)

[two-baes]

I realized that given the timeline I have for things in my batfam AU, Jason has totally encountered smol Damian during the time Talia found and whisked him away to be trained w/ the league after he was revived...

and since, in my AU, Jay is much less brain dead and more just... amnesiac (there’s still some brain damage, hence tossing him into the pit eventually, but it’s not as severe as in canon & he’s much more capable of actual interactions beyond JUST fighting) so yanno, he’d be able to talk w/ him!!

(and...you know, there aren’t really many other kids in the league {at this point Athanasia hasn’t been ‘born’ yet}, so even tho Jason’s a teen, I imagine li’l six year old Damian would probably take to him p fast and it’d be v cute)

I’d already decided in this AU Jay and Dami would be close (bc canon robbed us by having them so hostile at one another when they’re SO similar) but now I have an actual reason that makes sense for them to be. ie; they already met before Damian even came to live at the manor!

in my timeline Jason dies when he’s 14 then is resurrected a few months after and Talia finds and takes him, and keeps him ‘till he’s 17. So that’s about 3ish years for him and Damian to bond, w/ Damian being around 9 when he leaves to go back home, (and yanno then the following year Damian is sent to live w/ them, COINCIDENCE? perhaps. Or maybe he just begged his mother to send him as well bc he missed Jason??? and also probably wanted to meet his dad but MOSTLY MISSING JASON)

Jason probably at that time, wouldn’t be told that Damian is Bruce’s son, bc I imagine he’d tell Bruce about him the second he got back, but they still form a pretty close bond, and Damian’s v sad for him to leave once he’s all fixed...

okay there we go, legitimate reasons this works beyond just ‘this is my AU & I want my fave boys to get along bc I say so’ lmao.

[countessrivers]

Can you give me some recommendations for some good batfam representation? Is there even any?

I am so desperate for good batfam content, you have no idea. There are bits and pieces spread throughout the comics, some cute moments here and there, but not always involving all of them - maybe one or two at a time, and Bruce’s interactions are different with his kids than they would be with say Kate or Jim or Alfred. Batman and Robin Eternal is a good, long arc though, that focuses on the kids - even though Bruce is amnesiac for a good portion of it and I’m pretty sure it takes place when Damian’s dead (it’s been a while since I’ve read it). Fairly angsty, but in a good way. The kids team up, my angelic daughter Cass is (re)introduced, even Steph and Duke are there.

There’s a nice few issues in early Rebirth Nightwing where Bruce is kidnapped to get at Dick, and there’s a lot of talk about how the two of them helped each other, and how Bruce was a safety net for Dick, which inspired Dick to be the same to others, and how as Bruce jumped/fell from the top of the OTT death trap the villain had strapped him to, he wasn’t afraid because he knew/trusted Dick would catch him. There’s even the diner scene in early King’s (*gag*) Batman where the boys are being total siblings while Bruce frets over them getting hurt. Plus I’ve seen enough ‘Bruce hugging his kids’ compilations to know they exist, though I couldn’t tell you where most of them come from.

There’s probably older stuff, but honestly I haven’t worked my way back far enough to recommend any particular runs or issues, and most of the comics I do read in-depth are Superbat focused. But you’d probably have to go back that far anyway to avoid the annoying edgy and dramatic and shitty takes on the Batfam that modern writers keep pulling because they don’t know how to write characters accurately or interestingly without it.

(For the most part, just stay away from anything current)

Adaptations you are generally shit out of luck, because most of the time, particularly in the animated movies, people are missing for no good reason (Tim usually) or else one character, usually Bruce lbr, is written so badly or ooc that he’s an awful, problematic dick, purely to make the other characters look better (like, don’t even talk to me about Titans or Young Justice. Just don’t.) The Lego games/movies are generally pretty solid though (particularly the new Red Hood one, even though it looses points for having Robin be Damian, with no Tim in sight, but he’s basically Tim in personality anyway), and the Arkham games aren’t too bad, and there are cute or meaningful moments throughout most adaptations (when they’re not being undercut by, say, Damian making a joke about how his mother raped his father). Actually, the Robins might be minor characters in Gotham by Gaslight, but their interactions are excellent and the film ends with Alfred being like “here Master Bruce, you have children now,” and he’s like “...ok then”.

Ultimately the only good live-action Batfam representation is Gotham, because while it might not have the kids, the relationships between Bruce, Alfred, Selina, Jim, Lee, Lucius, Harvey and even baby Babs are so on point (I have a personal soft spot for Bruce and Jim’s relationship because it is so well done and they love and trust and inspire each other so much, and that hits me here *clutches chest*)

[fancyfade]

[image: a series of comic panels from Robin: son of Batman. first, Bruce Wayne (with his beard) is holding a kid in his arms, and beside him is julie madison. all three of them are dressed in winter clothing and standing in a snowy outside area. we see a comic panel showing Damian Wayne (dressed as Robin) watching them from the shadows. the close up is on his face and he is frowning. the next comic panel shows a close up of bruce’s face. he’s smiling. bruce starts to take the kid inside and julie follows him. there’s a narration box reading “Father...” Next panel we see is night. Damian is perched on the ledge of a window sill and has his cape wrapped around him. he’s looking down at something off screen and says “Now I am truly alone.” end image]

so for the life of me, i can’t figure out why damian didn’t interact with bruce when he had amnesia.

like my first assumption, when i read this the first time, was that damian was on paper dead, so he couldn’t reveal he was alive to his dad without freaking him out. but batman and robin (2011) made it seem like they never bothered officially declaring damian dead, bruce just made up some excuse about damian traveling the world (in character reason: he probably didn’t want to deal with the grief and was for a while intending on bringing damian back anyway. out of story reason: the writers were intending on bringing him back anyway, i’m guessing)

anyway so i know dick is on paper dead and thats why the only time he interacts with amnesiac bruce is through a disguise. but why doesn’t damian like... say hi?

from what i remember the one time i read some of the amnesiac bruce plotline, it seemed like the writers were intending on setting up amnesiac bruce in some like.. normal life where there was the implication he would give up his happiness and girlfriend if he went back to being batman? i guess that either involving any of his kids, adopted or biological, would bring questions like “oh so he still has family if he decides to be batman? it’s not necessarily a noble sacrifice loner thing?” or “is amnesiac bruce an asshole for ignoring his kids, who he hasn’t taken responsibility for in this ‘life’, but could still be relying on him?” and all of the complicated things that could bring up

[fancyfade]

honestly, if i was doing the amnesiac bruce plotline i would

a) make jim gordon not batman. sorry but my brain never fully reset the clock, so jim is still way too old to be batman in my mind, like what 60 or something?

b) more importantly: the batfam who has an excuse to be there is there. I have no clue what Tim was doing at this time (also I heard that new 52 Tim Drake is just Tim Drake-ish in name only? don’t have a good comparison myself though so can only say what i heard) so i don’t know if he’s free, but he can pop by for at least 1 issue. I know that Cass was retconned out by now (though was this happening at the same time as Batman and Robin Eternal? Where they brought her back). but anyway fuck that if i was doing it she wouldn’t be retconned out or have had her character reset. Maybe she can temporarily be batman. I think Dick and Damian each had their own solo titles at this point, so they’d probably only get brief cameos, like the had in canon. Dick is “dead” so he’d have the same way as in Grayson, but Damian would also get to interact with his dad rather than just watching him from the bushes.

then we can see how do the kids bruce adopted, who only were introduced to him through Batman (Tim and Cass) or were only born because of batman (Damian) interact with dad who is... not Batman at all. Like do they feel protective of him? Are they resentful he can’t remember what they view as “the real” him? Or are they looking for evidence he’s still the same guy? Are they envious of a normal life? Or completely ambivalent to normal?

and what would bruce do? he presumably thinks he’s doing some philanthropy stuff if he’s volunteering or whatever with julie, he hopefully cares about kids. how does he deal with his 10/11 year old kid and teenage or adult children who might be expecting things of him? He didn’t want alfred to tell him about his past, but is there any obligation there, or guilt if he can’t make himself care more?

you wouldn’t even need to add supervillains i would read this just for the character interactions! (as long as they got everyone right or at least, not too wrong :P)

[fancyfade]

in case ur curious about the fanfic i’m working on

it’s Damian interacting with amnesiac Bruce, since I mentioned thinking that was a missed opportunity earlier (link). Also got some Maya and Alfred too. Takes place right after Robin: Son of Batman #6

it was supposed to be a couple scenes but is 13k words so far. I *think* I’m about 2/3 of the way through.

why can’t I get this kind of writing stamina on the longfics I intend to turn into longfics?