It's Not Dire Straits If They're All Gay!

Bruce getting John affogato and trying to ignore how he moans when he takes the first bite of it. Imagine Bruce putting John in situations where he can listen to him make noises without fully realizing why he's doing this.

Permasocial is something I actually want to turn into a series, because I rarely play with the identity aspect of their relationship. In most of my stuff John tends to know pretty fast that Bruce is Batman, or is aware already. In Permasocial, he has no clue. It would be fun to explore John meeting up with Batman a few times and ending up starting to help him, falling for him more and more because he feels useful and Batman is so cool. Meanwhile, he's having less and less of a taste for Bruce because he's wishy washy and distant. Getting annoyed by him, even. Unfortunate for Bruce, who is starting to like him more than he wanted to as he gets to actually know him as Batman.

Imagine most Jokers of alternate universes all thinking they have the best sense of fashion. They meet each other and compare purple suits like they're in American Psycho showing off business cards.

Hey! It's Pride Month and I'm in the mood to write some Batjokes oneshots, and if the Telltale fandom is still alive and well, Bruce and John are my bread and butter! They'll only be around 3k most likely, but if anyone has a short idea or prompt they'd like me to take a crack at, whether it's fluff, angst, or anything else, let me know, and if it sparks something I can try to get it out! If you want an example of my other work I'm Clownandout on AO3, and I mainly write about Bruce and John already! I'm still working on Pulse and such, but having smaller things to clean the brain between chapters is a great break, and I'd love to put more finished work out, even if shorter!

I often write Bruce as being much more aware of the danger that John poses, due to his natural line of thought, than taking into account the amount of control that John has over himself and actually in reality displays. Bruce, as Batman, and as a man who has faced traumas, automatically seems to try to go to damage prevention, especially by ways of martyrism, deflection, or control. I believe he absolutely would over react to John's state of being, and that John would only put up with so much of it before snapping at him, whether Bruce is trying to "help" him or not. Some of what Bruce does could and does help, but only if he listens to him, which Bruce has a serious habit of not fully doing to people. I do think that Bruce could get better at this, but a lot of my stories involves this aspect of his character in relation to John because as a result, John's behavior shifts with how Bruce, someone important to him, treats him. The different choices that Bruce makes heavily impacts the direction the story goes, which is one of the reasons I consider them paths as I do. But don't take that to mean that leaves John powerless within the narrative, as in them he's the foil to Bruce's behavior, able to call him out or show him that what he's doing is stupid, or even act as an antagonist and fully flip the tables.

I try to portray John as someone who has very, very serious issues that effect him very badly, and obviously so, to the point he's someone people are wary of due to his neurodivergant behavior. But who is actually much more capable of controlling himself than people believe, because the issues and problems he shows are just the ones that leak out past his coping mechanisms. He's a man who actually has a large amount of awareness for himself and others. He's been in therapy for a vast majority of his remembered life. He knows about his own tendencies and symptoms, as he tells Bruce about some of them if he lashes out at the church, and he speaks up about ableism and oppression, like when he tries to explain to Waller that calling him a creature is derogatory. John comes across as strange, not just because of his skin, but his natural behavior. He only becomes endearing due to his charisma and ability to fold himself into something other people want him to be in order to survive in the situations he's put in. But I don't think he's naturally "cute" in a way that most of the populace would think so, they would be much more wary of him until they spend enough time together for him to read them.

I like to think that John watched a lot of movies and television over the years in Arkham, and he has an attachment to old shows that would rerun on the channels they got at Arkham, like I Dream of Jeannie. It ties into the fact a lot of Jokers like to make references to classic or popular movies and old TV shows and comedies, and it just makes sense for him.

The song that John sings while in the bath in Hand over Hand is called Down In The Valley! It's a classic folk song, but here John knows it from the old comedy film "Stir Crazy", that has to do with a group of men stuck in an asylum.