#i totally did not project my own feelings about grieving tim

[kennedy-writes]

pirate band headcanons for the void

who else knows the pain of falling in love with something that doesn't have a defined fandom or much known lore? I love the Bootstrappers for their music and performance, but also LOVE the characters themselves and wish we had more developed canon stuff. i want to know what their actual roles in the crew are, if they've decided on this. but alas.

I can't draw, so I make up lil stories about them to keep entertained until the next time I go see them, and to keep me sane without an active fan community lol

so here, some current headcanon:

Stringfellow knows where Henry Avery went and has a small part of his treasure somewhere. He collects eccentric navigational instruments and can tell you the history of each one. He is skilled in roguery but kind at heart. He is also the ship dad.

Vivi is the world's best and most intimidating quartermaster, after Mean Jean, who trained her in the ways of the ship. Any of the crew would die for her in battle, but as she is the best fighter on the crew, it's usually her getting the others out of tight spots.

Grieving Tim was impressed into a smaller navy vessel as a young lad and it was so miserable that when pirates took the vessel he volunteered to join them. He got scurvy once on the navy ship.

Grieving Tim becomes everyone's favorite crewmate. His talent for turning up with impossibly stolen liquor wins them over at first, but then it's just him. He lifts the spirits of the crew. There's no one on the ship who doesn't have a soft spot for him and wouldn't want to give up some of their rations for him were they running low. This is especially true of Syd, though he would never admit it.

Before joining the crew, Syd had been nearly broken down by many prison sentences and hard labor. He has seen horrors and is capable of them, too. Stringfellow and Mean Jean kinda just found him one day. He started off as a cook. Pirate life suited him well and later he became the gunner's mate (maybe Yuri is the gunner). In both these roles he is surprisingly competent, though the crew had their reservations. Though he's still prone to mischief, he is now integral to the running of the ship and the reputation of the crew. His moods are variable, new crew are warned not to cross him, and he's summoned when torture is needed.

The Professor is the ship surgeon. On land he did go to medical school but was so thoroughly disgraced by his academic rivals that he resigned and took to drinking. One day while at the pub he was kidnapped by the pirates, who needed his expertise in medicine, for wounds incurred after exchanging broadsides with a spanish ship. He liked it better there and never left.

Schooner Bob is 100% a bosun. But he's also the captain/skipper a lot of the time. He prefers the bosun job but does like the full extra share that comes with the captaincy and he keeps getting voted in. Vivi, as the quartermaster, does most of the leadership. Schooner Bob mostly wants to vibe and be left alone, but he knows too much of the stuff that other people don't and is well respected for it.

anyway. this is how i imagine them sometimes based on vibes and tropes i like hehe. pirates and my brain just go together. i also have to talk about them or I'll go insane :)

[localfandomenthusiast]

Dk if you're still looking for recs but allow me! Most of these are insanely popular so you probs alr know them lol. I do ramble some of my probably spoiler-free opinions/summaries but you can skip them!

Ongoing BUT my current fav and go-to fic!!! I've re-read this a bunch of times alr and each chapter keeps getting better!!!

Basically, Bernard goes back in time to his HS-self, gets stuck in a time-loop on the day Darla dies and now he has to figure out how to keep his best friend alive; stop the loop, and go back to the future(present?). HEADS UP, HS Tim is still with Steph but there are a bunch of cute Timbern moments; this fic emphasize the most on the relationship between the Louis E. Grieve trio. Please mind the tags!

Ah yes, possession, what more can you say to that? Real fluffy ending though, 10/10 WILL read again

You know the trope where a masked person is heavily injured and seeks out their lover's place? Switch it up, now it's the masked person's also masked family member! There are 3 fics rn for this series, I recommend reading all of them!

Tim reallyyy wants to propose to his boyfriend, but alas the universe seems to always throw a wrench into his plans. Misunderstandings involved (on both parts but the seriousness between them are wayy different LOL)

It's not actually as serious as I described it lol, it's real fluffy and Tim's a total lovesick fool (emphasis on fool). Also, Bernard's studying greek myths yay!

What if they were just ordinary boys like in our world; and the whole vigilante-batman shabang was just as known to them as to us, in comics? But one day, one of them fell into a hole and ended up on the other side as... Bernard Dowd? Wait, that's not his last name! And is this Gotham City?!

ONE OF MY ALL-TIME FAV, PLEASE PLEASE READ THIS ONE. OH THE FEELS, oh the heartaches...; hope you will enjoy Bernard's journey finding his way back home like I did!

I am once again, BEGGING you to read this, on god, my all-time's fav. Also got fanart from one of my fav artists!! AHHHHH

Basic sypnosis, snippets of their relationship's growth, from their (kinda?) 2nd date to Tim's lowkey sugar daddy arc; they're flirtingggggg and ooo the anxieties of keeping secrets from your partner. Once again, 10/10, have re-read so often it's ingrained in my memories

HAHA, what can I say about this fic? Well, good luck with all the things this fic's gonna hit you with

You should check out the author's other works! They have written a lot of my fav Timbern fics!

Man will do anything but be direct, even treating a PHONE CALL like a chess game.

Very fluffy, very cute,

These bitches gay as hell, good for them, good for them

I actually don't even know how to describe this LOL,

Claw machine.

Duck Tim.

Enjoy!

People should recommend timbern fics for me to read btw!

[bigskydreaming]

Um... /post/188248925631/dick-and-damian-dont-love-each-other-more-than Explain, please. Also curious about your opinion on the Dick and Damian being the mirror of Bruce and Dick, especially things like That scene in Nightwing #20 and fanon's heart nut material that is Dick being Damian's father figure along with brother.

LOL that was a goof post that basically is just another way of me saying “stop making the Batkids have favorites, let them all love and appreciate each other just in different ways.” With the fact that Dick and Damian tend to interact with each other more comfortably than with their other siblings not being proof of favoritism, but rather just...a lot of the same things and experiences appeal to them in very similar ways, so they have plenty of available bonding activities at any given moment. 

Like I see them both as adrenaline junkies in a way that say, Tim perhaps isn’t....like Tim isn’t afraid to do any of the things he does as a vigilante, of course, but he���s a more cerebral character, more of a thinker, happy surrounded by computers and data and investigation files as much as anything else...whereas Dick and Damian I both see as very physically oriented people, they like action, danger and excitement that gets their blood pumping and adrenaline going, like....on its own merits. 

So they’re like “HELL YEAH, LET’S DO THE THING” when the thing isn’t always the most....logical course of action, but hey, at least they’re not gonna be bored, lol. Y’know?

As far as Dick and Damian mirroring Bruce and Dick....I both agree and disagree with it.

I disagree in the sense that canon and fanon frequently views them as an INVERTED mirror of Bruce and Dick, with Dick as the happy Batman trying to cheer up the brooding Robin Damian, as opposed to when Bruce was the brooding Batman cheered up by his happy Robin Dick.

Because I think that devalues Bruce and Dick’s VERY early relationship, the inception of it, the foundation of their bond....and perhaps ironic given how critical I am of Bruce and his badly written or acted upon parenting a lot of the time....I think this perception of Bruce and Dick undercuts some of Bruce’s BEST times as a parent to Dick, specifically.

Because Bruce WASN’T just a dark, brooding Batman for most of the time Dick was Robin, historically speaking. Before the late 70s/early 80s, which was also around the time they started transitioning Dick out of Batman’s sphere and into his own role as Nightwing and most associated with the Titans, like....before all that, Batman tended to be as silly, tongue in cheek, and yes, even cheerful, as he was at times dark and brooding. Like, in pre-Flashpoint stories that trace back to Dick’s early years, Bruce SMILED, even when in the cowl. He laughed, he joked, he called Dick by personal endearments. He was PATERNAL and affectionate.

And given that in pretty much every version of his origin story, and like....in logical view of the events that unfolded in it....Dick himself did not START as a cheerful, happy go lucky Robin without a care in the world. He was traumatized, he was grieving. Depending on which origin you go with, he had massive trust issues, in all origins he has abandonment issues....early Dick Grayson had a darkness every bit as much as anyone else, because he was a lost and grieving child trying to find his way in the world with his usual support, lifeline, the familiarity that had defined so much of his early life in the form of his parents, his friends, his circus....like all of that was gone, and he had to start over in terms of finding things good and worthwhile in a world that had taken all of that away from him.

And it was Bruce who helped him do that. Who was HIS light, HIS brightness every bit as much as people tend to credit Dick with being his, if not more. Like, I would argue that it was NEVER that Dick made Bruce lighter and happier by simply being himself and always being cheerful and joking. More accurately, I’d suggest that it was more that Dick made Bruce lighter and happier by giving him reason to make a conscious CHOICE to be those things...for Dick’s benefit, specifically, so as to help steer Dick away from becoming a replica of his darkest and most brooding self, by setting a more carefree, light-hearted example for Dick to look at and use to help decide how he wanted to shape himself and what he wanted to shape himself into.

So the irony is, I think Dick and Damian are MORE of a mirror to early Bruce and Dick than people actually deem them to be. That they weren’t actually an inverted mirror, with Dick always playing the role of the cheerful inspiration that brightened his counterpart’s demeanor. I see it as Dick occupying the exact same role Bruce did in Damian’s life, leading him by example, out of his own personal darkness, the way Bruce had once done for him...no matter what differences came between them later in life.

The part where I DO think they’re actually an inverted mirror of Bruce and Dick, is in the paternal bond between Dick and Damian, that fandom highlights so consciously. Its not that Bruce wasn’t paternal, as I said earlier. Its more that like....there was always that slight distance or buffer (that grew as Dick grew older) that came about because of the uncertainty between Dick and Bruce as to what they actually were to each other, what label to use for each other....friend, brother, partner, father/son? And I do firmly believe that as the adult and guardian, it was Bruce’s responsibility to take the lead in establishing what they were to each other...or at least, what they COULD be, if Dick wanted it to be.

Like, I mean, the popular take is that Bruce never adopted Dick as a kid because he didn’t want to replace Dick’s father in his eyes. But like, there’s all of one story in pretty much their entire history when Dick ACTUALLY says anything like that himself...and its back when he’s like, ten or eleven, and they’re trying to keep him in Bruce’s custody and so like, a judge is forcing ten year old Dick to like....put a label to them himself. And Dick is many things, but presumptuous on his own behalf has NEVER been one of them, so I have super negative feelings towards that always being pointed at as why Bruce didn’t adopt Dick as a kid and saying see, it was for Dick’s benefit because he was just doing what Dick wanted....like, no. An orphaned kid who lost everything once, has massive abandonment issues, and ended up taken in by a billionaire who gave him more than he could have imagined....like that kid is NEVER going to be the one to push the envelope and say “hey this isn’t quite enough for me, could you please also adopt me, Bruce, even though you’ve never given me any clear indication that this was okay with you or something you even wanted?”

Like. Its just not realistic. Or fair to put that on the kid, to be the one to open up that avenue for exploration. This is why people who foster or adopt older kids are HEAVILY stressed to make clear to the child like....what their OPTIONS are. Like if they foster them initially, its not presuming anything about the child’s wants to just....make it clear that hey, if this is ever something YOU want, we would be very much open to adopting you and changing our dynamic accordingly, but if not, that’s fine too.

Kids just aren’t going to have the confidence to ASK for that. They’re just not. Especially when they come into the relationship with the kind of emotional baggage and familiarity with total upheaval that Dick had.

So my point being....I don’t think it was ever truly that Dick wanted to not be adopted, or expressed or hinted at that in any way. I think its more likely that Bruce projected his own wants on Dick, based on the fact that he initially identified with him and his circumstances so much, seeing himself reflected in Dick’s tragedy when losing his own parents. I think Bruce’s hesitancy to raise the issue of adoption when Dick was a kid was far more likely to do Bruce assuming Dick wouldn’t want that....because Bruce projected himself into DICK’S shoes, and based on THAT, operated off of what HE would have wanted as a kid....which was to NOT see his parents replaced in any real way, even though Alfred of course was very much a paternal presence throughout his later childhood.

So its not even that Bruce didn’t want to adopt Dick either - I think he very much did. He just told himself that Dick wouldn’t possibly want that, because Bruce couldn’t imagine have wanted that himself when he was Dick’s age, in Dick’s situation. And so Bruce held back from ever really raising it while Dick was a kid, because he was afraid he’d only get rejected if he did....again, just based purely on his personal assumptions and history.

The irony, for me, and why I see this as an inverted mirror to Dick and Damian’s bond....is that I think once Dick was in Bruce’s shoes....he did the EXACT SAME THING BRUCE HAD DONE....just in the other direction. He, just like Bruce had with him...projected himself into Damian’s shoes, and based his decisions off his assumptions about what Damian wanted or would want....which were in turn, based on his memories of what HE had wanted when he was the one in Damian’s position. Which was for Bruce to fully act like a father to him, to not hold back or hesitate or be afraid to step into that role.

So because of that, Dick tried to avoid what he saw as responsible for so much of the distance between him and Bruce - that hesitancy to establish a clear relationship and bond that left no real doubt how either felt - and so he in contrast all but threw himself into the paternal role with Damian...also using it at the same time to hide from his own grief and other issues stemming from Bruce’s death as well as having to be Batman. He EMBRACED being there and available as an actual father figure to Damian, if Damian made moves in that direction - which of course Damian inevitably did, because he was a kid desperately in need of affection, and here Dick was offering it freely and openly.

I think this additionally played into why Dick was so resistant to believing Tim about Bruce - it wasn’t that he didn’t WANT Bruce to be alive or that he didn’t trust Tim or WANT Tim to be right....it was that on some level, because of what he saw as so crucial to being for Damian’s benefit, and to avoiding making the same ‘mistakes’ with Damian that he felt Bruce had made by holding himself back from him at times, emotionally....Dick couldn’t afford to see himself as a placeholder in Damian’s life. Especially not without any guarantees that Bruce actually was alive or could come back....let alone how long that would take to happen. If he did that, accepted that, it would be all to easy to put off establishing that firm presence and role in Damian’s eyes for longer and longer....until one day he might look up and years might have passed and Damian was sixteen and pissed off and moving out because he didn’t know what he was to Dick and Dick was afraid to tell him, because he was afraid of replacing Bruce in Damian’s eyes.

So I think on some level, Dick just couldn’t allow himself to believe Bruce might come back, because if he did that, he wouldn’t be able to commit to what he truly, honestly felt Damian needed him to be, for Damian’s sake.

With the end result being that strong father/son seeming bond between them....and Dick not having ANY clue how to handle it when Bruce DID ultimately come back, and he probably went in his head....oh shit, I fucked up, I replaced Bruce in Damian’s eyes, or at least made it weird or difficult for them...I gotta get 1000 miles away from here STAT, otherwise I’ll fuck things up for them more and they’ll never have the father/son relationship I want them to have and they deserve to have, and it’ll be all my fault. And PS no this does not have anything to do with my devastation that I went all in on this whole ‘treating Damian like my own son’ thing and now I can’t do that anymore, I have no real claim, that’s not my place and I gotta just make my peace with Bruce occupying the role I came to want and love having myself.

*Shrugs* So yeah. All of that.

Oh and also....it does feed my ire on the ‘treating Dick like he’s only sorta Bruce’s son because of the smaller age gap between Dick and Bruce and how young Bruce was when he took Dick in’ front. Because Dick and Damian have just as small an age gap and Dick was pretty much just as young and Damian just as old as Bruce and Dick had been, originally...

And yet notice how fandom has NO trouble characterizing Dick and Damian having an almost father/son dynamic even WITH Bruce still present and even WITH them only having occupied those roles in each other’s lives for a year.

But meanwhile, Dick raised solely by Bruce from ages 8 through the end of his childhood, and some people still can’t wrap their heads around how they could possibly be TRULY a father and son to each other because this reason or that one?

Meh. Sounds fake. Hard pass. LOL.