#tim used to write batfics

[noazhere]

Jason: ... somewhere I must've heard it. I don't know.

Tim:

Jason: I SAID I DON'T KNOW. *leaves*

[melonpalooza]

@doctaaaaaaaar Chapter 3 of our time travel Duke collab!

Even doodled a little thing for it. wahoo!:

[writerseven]

i would love commentary on the ending conversation between jason and bruce from present if you're willing (sorry i tried sending the actual passage but tumblr kept rejecting my ask for some reason when i actually pasted it) love your fics!!!

Thank you!! yeah tumblr is a nightmare, but no worries about not pasting the section; this works too! I'll include it here myself

When he returns to his bedroom, Jason is finally sitting up, hair still rumbled and face imprinted with the pillow's creases. He looks around the room before squinting up at Bruce.

(gonna be real I just love the contrast of Big Scary Jason having pillow imprints on his face. also I just found another typo from doing this booo)

“Where's the kid?” he asks.

Bruce raises his eyebrows in judgment. “It's Monday. He's at school.”

Jason, as always, falters and then steels back up at the implied insult to his intelligence. “Yeah. Right.”

Before he can wake up enough to become irritable, Bruce glides over to him for a deep and forceful kiss. Jason catches up after a moment, grasping handfuls of Bruce's shirt to hold him close, and then shoving him away.

In terms of word choice/little micro writing decisions, describing that judgmental 'he's at school' took me a minute. Even though this fic is 100% Bruce's PoV I originally imagined that moment more from Jason's, where it's easier to just describe Bruce as judgmental and Jason as upset. Writing it in Bruce's PoV unlocks all the underlying motivation—Bruce knows he's being a condescending dick, doesn't even think Jason is stupid, and just figures the insecurity will put Jason on the defensive—and I wildly over-explained all of that when I first wrote it

(A consistent problem for me: I am always trying to talk myself down from explaining too much, and reminding myself I can trust readers to put things together themselves. That's also just a good writing tip in general! Trust your readers to pay attention!)

“Alfred kept breakfast warm for you,” Bruce says, belaying whatever Jason meant to say and redirecting to safer topics. “I think he mentioned showing you the remodels to the library when he returns, if you're up for it.”

Jason grunts, shifting off the bed. “I'm taking a shower.”

It's not a no. Practically the same as agreement.

OKAY so writing any given scene is a lot easier when I know what I'm trying to accomplish with it, and this scene was for two things. The first was just to sort of establish time moving forward and give a baseline for what everybody will be doing.

Lure to present all take place over the weekend with very few pauses left to the imagination between events, but I knew I was going to jump ahead a little bit going forward (and switch temporarily away from the Bruce/Jason/Tim trio with Dick's PoV), so I wanted to briefly establish that Jason is still at the manor even with Tim gone, and Bruce is probably using various little activities and excuses (and Alfred) to keep him around. It may just be me, and I definitely get far more intense about time lines than most people, but I knew it would bug me if I didn't give some indication of where Jason would be and why. He probably wouldn't stick around without the Tim-excuse on his own, thus Bruce guiding to safe topics like “Alfred wants to show you stuff!”

(also: “It's not a no. Practically the same as agreement.“ he’s just the WORST)

“Jason,” Bruce says, stopping him as he reaches the bathroom doorway. He's had a month to adjust to it, but the mere ability to speak his son's name again still fills some part of his heart long left empty. “Last night was...” Revelatory. A perfect gift.

“Thank you," he finishes. "I don't know what I'd do without you.”

(two typos ughhhhhhhhhhhh)

The second goal was making that extremely unsubtle parallel between Bruce's manipulations of Jason and of Tim with I don't know what I'd do without you. There have definitely been some parallels already, but I really liked making it super blatant. (Hey remember three seconds ago when I said I tend to over-explain? Whoops. Hopefully this one was merited and enjoyable.) It's a comment on how awful Bruce is, but also a little bit how lazy he's gotten—he doesn't even need to come up with anything else, because he just uses the exact same line on both.

...the embarrassing addition here is that the first version I posted left it unclear who said that last line, which I didn't realize until a commenter referred to it as Jason speaking. 😬  Tbh the idea of Jason already knowing exactly what Bruce was going to say was super cool and interesting and I straight up wondered if that be better and I should canon-ize it—but ultimately it just doesn't work with where I'm pushing the characters. Unfortunately for Jason, as aware as he is of Bruce's manipulative tendencies in general, he completely fails—or perhaps subconsciously refuses—to notice Bruce is using them on him too.

Subtler parallel: Jason's initial confusion at Tim being gone, having completely forgotten about the concept of school, lightly mirrors Tim in the previous fic thinking about how strange and distant “real life” felt. (Though Jason has the excuse of, you know, not having school and a “normal” life since he died)

That sort of calls back to one of my favorite parallels (though probably not as noticeable since it's between fics)—Jason noting in surrogate that everybody brushing their teeth together is the weirdest thing he's done, and then Tim noting in prevaricator that seeing Jason eat breakfast like a normal person is the weirdest thing he's seen. They're both SO USED to this ridiculously fucked up situation that mundane and calm events are what register as wrong.

And jumping back for one last thing:

He's had a month to adjust to it, but the mere ability to speak his son's name again still fills some part of his heart long left empty.

I wanted to remind everyone that Jason's return was very recent (because I know typical batfic picks up awhile after it) but more importantly, I wanted to make it clear that Bruce really does...care about Jason.

It's a shitty, manipulative, controlling kind of care, but he loves his son. I've read various sorta similar fics where it turns out Bruce never liked Jason (or even arranged his death!!!) and I wanted to take very much the opposite path here. imo it's more twisted and more compelling the less black and white things are. Bruce isn't a heartless monster who only wants to abuse his kids and doesn't care for them; Bruce is a horrible person who abuses his kids but still fully believes he loves them in his own way, and would absolutely protect them from any danger (except, yknow, the danger Bruce poses himself).

This commentary is way longer than the actual passage, but hopefully y'all liked reading it as much as I liked rambling. Thanks for the ask, anon!!!

[bigskydreaming]

Pet peeve in Batfics or comics: jokes about Dick’s horrible sense of fashion, based on his original Robin or Nightwing costumes. ESPECIALLY jokes made by his family, the other Robins most of all.

.......gee, why would a grieving circus orphan design his superhero costumes to look like....something worn by circus performers?

Like, no shit those designs look ‘terrible’ by most characters’ or fans’ fashion standards, but they were never MEANT to be conventionally fashionable from an in character OR behind the scenes perspective. ‘Conventional’ fashion standards could disapprove all they want, they were irrelevant to the aims of the kid designing the costumes as something that would look and feel like the best and happiest times of his life. Dick was never TRYING to design something that would look ‘fashionable,’ he was trying to design something that looked like what he’d worn and would have kept wearing all his life as a circus performer. If he’d ever been given the OPTION of staying as one, of having control over which direction his life took, instead of being ripped away from it whether he liked it or not. Which, y’know. He did not.

Tbh, this is a pretty big blindspot in most writings about Dick’s character IMO, because like, his ‘terrible fashion sense’ is basically both a canon and fanon trope at this point.....but.....he doesn’t have a terrible fashion sense? There’s literally NO other instance in the comics of him not being able to dress fashionably? In fact, in both canon AND fanon, Dick’s civilian persona, his version of Bruce’s ‘Brucie’ act, is him being a pretty famous celebrity socialite in his teenage years and early twenties? One who was constantly in the papers while dating Starfire - a famous superheroine slash supermodel - in his civilian persona?

......ummm....but sure, the famous supermodel dating celebrity doesn’t know how to dress himself or what looks good. That makes sense.

Dick’s never had a bad fashion sense, his first, self-designed costumes as both Robin and Nightwing were only ever ‘unfashionable’ because HE DIDN’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THEM BEING FASHIONABLE LOL THAT WASN’T REMOTELY HIS PRIORITY. HE WAS HOLDING ONTO HIS HERITAGE AND TYING IT TO HIS SUPERHEROICS IN DEFIANCE OF AN UNCARING SYSTEM AND SOCIETY WHO HAD NO RESPECT FOR IT OR WHAT IT MEANT TO HIM.

So, making his brothers guilty of the exact same thing, for an easy laugh that doesn’t actually make sense given literally ANYTHING else about his character, feels....meh. Always pulls me out of a story and throws me into headcanons about how shitty it must make Dick feel that later Robins gave no fucks before altering the designs to their own preferences without ever bother asking or caring WHY Dick would have designed them with ‘short pants and pixie boots’ in the first place. Why do those interpretations of those characters care so much about being ROBIN if you don’t have them ever care about what being Robin MEANT to the guy who conceived of it and made it what it was - something they aspired to be themselves - in the first place?

Also I know a lot of people point to the mullet Dick had in the 80′s as their other proof of his terrible fashion sense, and like, I know it is by modern standards, and it doesn’t transition well to writing a modern Dick who was only 18 or 19 five years ago or so, our time, but uh....it WAS fashionable according to the sensibilities of the time he was shown having it....which was like....kinda why he was drawn having it. Yeah, it doesn’t make sense for him to have had one five years ago, but if its only ever brought up now as something he had five years ago in order to prove how unfashionable he is, again, it just....doesn’t fit? Sometimes things in comics can’t hold up over time, and that’s just one of those things. 

My point with this post is kinda like.....literally EVERY superhero has had shitty, unfashionable costume designs at some point in history, when judged by modern standards, but ONLY Dick’s costumes have a time-honored tradition of being called out and laughed at - usually by his own successors - when the irony is, ONLY Dick’s costumes have an origin and explanation for how they look that DOES manage to stand the test of time and changing fashion trends.....BECAUSE THEY WEREN’T DESIGNED TO FIT A SPECIFIC ERA’S FASHION STANDARDS LOLOL.

Ngl, this one bugs me a lot, because I will never not be annoyed by how entitled most people make the later Robins towards the mantle and its legacy, and how rarely they’re written as giving a shit about Dick’s feelings on the matter or the history and heritage and traditions the Robin persona was meant to embody when Dick first made it, with no expectation that anyone BUT him would ever hold it.

It ESPECIALLY annoys, given how much deference most writers and fans give towards Jason, Tim and Damian’s origins, and how respectful and protective they are of where each of them come from and their early lives and histories.

Like, if you’ve got Jason bristling over insults about him growing up in the poor parts of Gotham, you shouldn’t be unironically writing Jason mocking his older brother’s origins, y’know? I’ve read so many fics that are like “poor Jason, who had it so rough at fancy galas growing up with Bruce, where everybody looked down on him, unlike Dick who everybody loved” and its kinda like.....dudes, think about how you all write Dick’s own FAMILY treating his circus origins and upbringing, and then ask yourself seriously. Is it REALLY likely that all those rich Gotham snobs at those events didn’t look down their noses at Dick every bit as much? That they weren’t laughing WITH him so much as AT him, and that Dick, who grew up in a circus that traveled the world and brought him into contact with so many people, probably always knew damn well how to tell the difference between people genuinely entertained by him and people just entertained by the amusing anecdote of his existence, ‘that adorable little circus boy Wayne took in?’ 

Yeah, Dick probably always knew how to work a crowd at those events and make it LOOK like he was having a good time, but that’s because that used to be his JOB, even as a kid. Doesn’t mean he ever actually enjoyed it when stuck attending events where he knew damn well how little respect people had for him or where he came from.

(Tbh, I consider this to be one more thing Dick and Jason have in common with each other more than the others, and I also headcanon its why Jason never tried to change the Robin costume or even thought about it as far as we ever saw. And its also why I will always always write Dick as having told Jason stuff about the circus and why he made Robin the way he did, after he first gave Jason his own costume, and why I always write Jason as having seen Dick as an ally and someone to vent to about that stuff, knowing he’d get it where Bruce wouldn’t have a clue. Because it doesn’t make SENSE for Jason not to know or understand this about Dick, and for Dick not to have seen this common ground between them after he already extended the olive branch of giving Jason his blessing as Robin. Jason Todd is many things, but entitled is NOT one of them, and IMO he would never ever ever stomp all over someone else’s humble origins in the same ways he’s used to people doing with him. I headcanon that Jason was the Robin who altered the Robin persona as little as possible, because he knew what it was like to have so little left to hold onto, and he wanted to honor and respect what Robin meant to Dick, as much as what it’d come to mean to him. I will always always see it being more natural for Dick and Jason to be natural allies against the wealthy of Gotham and even Bruce’s own entitlement issues.)

[starspatter]

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 14, 16, 17,18

1: When did you start writing?I’ve generally been writing since elementary school, but the first time I published fanfiction looks to be around 2004?2: How many different fandoms have you written for?Honestly I’ve really only written for Pokémon, the Haruhi Suzumiya series, and now recently Batman.  Surprisingly I don’t read/write any Kagepro fic. *shrug* There are just some series I’m not interested in fanfic for, and Kagepro has too much conflicting/changing (head)canon for me to accept alternate interpretations of.3: If applicable, do you think your writing has improved a lot or a little since you first started writing?Ahaha… I’d like to think so. ^^; At the very least I don’t use the word “optics” for “eyes” anymore. XP4: What was the first fic you wrote?*deep breath* Digging through my (cringey) files, it looks like it might’ve actually been a short songfic I wrote based on an old fantasy RP character of mine (I know I mentioned I don’t RP, but I just meant on this site) with Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”.  Preteen me was so emo lmao.  In terms of actual fanfiction though, I think it was a piece on the Pokémon Celebi?  One of my first forays into fanfic was a series of Legendary Pokémon, as I recall.5: What is your favorite fic you have written?So far, it’d be my TimSteph story “Hero and Thieves” since it is my greatest endeavor that I poured a lot of my time and love and effort into, and for the sheer fact I actually managed to finish the entire draft of a multi-chapter fic (if at the cost of many nights of sleep and my sanity lol *shot*),  Now if I could only do the same for my ItsuHaru story… OTL6: Which character of yours has been your favorite to write?Stephanie Brown, surprisingly.  Even though I still feel like I don’t know her that well, she’s got such a fun personality I enjoyed writing her immensely. 10: Do you ever put any of your own traits or personality into any of your characters? Which?Ah it’s more like I write for characters whom I relate to; both Itsuki Koizumi and BTAS Tim Drake I feel reflect me in certain ways mainly for negative traits, if not personality-wise then circumstantially.12: Which do you prefer writing most, description, dialogue, or actions?I used to be a description whore, but lately I’ve been trying to focus more on dialogue due to laziness.14: Which of your fics would you like to see turned into a movie the most?I don’t know that I’d want an actual movie, but I would love to see Tim’s and Steph’s story incorporated into the DCAU somehow.  Their relationship really has a lot of potential and I wish to see the aftermath of RotJ explored further.16: Are there any ideas you are currently playing around with that you would like to write sooner or later?*looks at ItsuHaru fic ideas* Haha… ha.  There are those, and a couple other DC ficlets I’ve been mulling over: One involving DCEU Diana and Bruce bonding over ice cream and shared losses (which I might try to work on after Justice League comes out), and the other being a story about Veronica Vreeland and her one-sided relationship with Bruce in BTAS.  (I’m a sucker for unrequired romances, what can I say.)Also that Batman x Kagepro crossover. *shot*17: Favorite fic that is not written by you?I’m still quite fond of “Unmasked” by Jazzy_B_Real, since it was the first fic to basically introduce me to the ItsuHaru pair and kickstart my obsession.  There are a fair few Batfics I’ve read since I recently fell into the fandom that I enjoy, but of them I think the one that stands out most is “Come build in the empty house” by Liviapenn.  It’s a bit long and rambling (and randomly ships Terry with Zatara II?), but feels the most believable in terms of an epilogue/finale to RotJ.  Even though it was written well before Batman Beyond 2.0 came out, it works well as an actual “hopeful” ending to the series proper.18: Have you ever written a personal experience into your fic?Mm again a lot of what I write is reflective of myself, especially with my current life circumstances; it’s been kind of a catharsis in that regard.  Aside from general introspection, there are some specific personal experiences I’ve inserted here and there.  One of the future chapters of “Heroes and Thieves” is actually based on a real experience I had rescuing a baby robin. ;O