#yofa

*also possibly under what circumstances, like depending on how well they're getting along at the time or if one of them is hurt or what.

.....................this is getting a little out of hand, whoops. anyway! i would be grateful.

Other people have made posts on this topic, but not me. I can see if I can find them and reblog them for you.

In general, there really aren't that many canon nicknames. Most of them are fanon, but I embrace them all wholeheartedly regardless, because I love them.

I SUSPECT that I was the originator of Bruce calling Tim "sweetheart," because I really didn't see it in fanfiction before I wrote Year of Fallen Angels, but now I see it all the time. I'm perfectly fine with it with being a trend, btw, because I adore it. But yeah, it's not canon.

Bruce tends to call all of his Robins things like "chum," "lad," maybe a "buddy" now and then. The boys generally just call each other by their names. Dick called Jason "little wing" ONCE, in an arc that I refuse to regard as canon, and Dick called TIm "kiddo" several times and "Timmy" many times.

Final Chapter

Excerpt:

Today was Tim's birthday. He was finally, officially eighteen years old. Many, many times over the last year, he had doubted that he would make it to this day. Over the course of the year he had lost a great deal. He had gained much of what he'd lost back, though not all. Idols had fallen and relationships had broken, and some of that had never been restored and probably never would be.

But other relationships that had begun broken had been pieced together and remade into something new, enriching Tim's life in innumerable ways. A lot of people had put a lot of time and effort into Tim. He felt both humbled and uplifted by it. He had started the year utterly convinced that he was alone, rejected and disbelieved by everyone who meant anything to him. He ended the year certain that he was loved and cherished, with family and friends who would cross oceans and lift mountains to protect him and save him and help him heal.

It felt like he'd been seventeen for twenty years. But finally, finally, this interminable year was ending, and a new one was about to begin. Tim felt like he could finally breathe. This was his New Year, far more meaningful than January 1.

His family was gathering at the manor for a birthday dinner, and then Tim was going to go out into Gotham in the new identity he'd spent more than a month crafting. Only Bruce knew about his new name and costume, since he'd helped Tim design and fabricate everything. Jason and Damian kept pestering him for clues, and Tim kept refusing. He couldn't wait to show them, though. He was a little nervous, wondering what their reactions would be, but he was pretty sure they would like it.

The only reason Dick hadn't pestered him was because he hadn't spent as much time at home, and when he was there he was having too much fun being with everyone to be a brat. That alone had elevated him to favorite brother status, which Tim informed Jason and Damian of everytime they picked on him again. Cass had probably already figured everything out, if not by reading Bruce and Tim's body language, then by the being the sneaky, silent ex-assassin she was.

Today, Dick arrived at home a couple of hours before the birthday celebration was set to take place. Damian met him at the door and demanded his usual hug, then let him come in and greet Tim, too. He picked Tim up a giant bear hug, squeezing so tight that Tim lost his breath for a moment. When he set him down, both were laughing. Tim clung to his arms and grinned, face flushed and breath rushing.

His heart beat faster, and his fingers tightened on Dick's shirt sleeve involuntarily. He'd been thinking about Dick coming home for days now, planning what to say. There was still one more conversation he wanted to have before his new year began. One more relationship he wanted to mend, or try to.

"Dick, could I talk to you in private?"

Dick's laughter faded at the seriousness in Tim's voice. He gave him a careful nod, then turned to Damian with a plastic grin. "We'll be back in a bit, okay, little buddy?"

Damian nodded and made a shooing motion with his hands. "Go on. Don't take more than two hours. Dinner is going to be magnificent."

Because I switched so quickly from writing tons of Voltron fics to now being obsessed with Batfam, I have a lot of followers who have no idea what Batfamily content is and how to get into it. Someone asked me for something like an essential reading list, so I’m going to do my best to provide that.

We’re staying away from the reboots, here. I don’t care for them. Also this list is geared toward helping people who like my writing to get enough Batfamily background to enjoy my current fic, Year of Fallen Angels.

Also, keep in mind that this is just my opinion, man. I like these comics, but they may not be for everyone. If you start reading Batman and associated comics and find they are too bloody or gory or dark or horrific for you, this fandom may not be for you. And that’s okay. 

I’ll put asterisks next to the ones I consider essential for understanding these characters and their relationships, but I’ll have other comics as well that I also think are good. These are all linked to a place where you can read them online. Use an adblocker. Explanations for my choices will be under the read more.

* Batman: Dark Victory (Starting in issue 8.) 

Batgirl/Robin: Year One

Batman: The Killing Joke

* Batman: A Death in the Family

* Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying - Batman #440, New Titans #60, Batman #441, New Titans #61, Batman #442 

Robin: Reborn 

Robin: The Joker's Wild 

Batman: Legacy

* Batman: The Mark of Cain - Batman #567, Detective Comics #734

Batman: Hush

* Batman: Under the Red Hood 

* Batman: Batman and Son

Batman: The Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul 

Red Robin

Gosh, I love writing fever talk. I love it when characters get messed up in the head and just start babbling. It’s one of my favorite things. Especially when the character is reserved and keeps their emotions to themselves, like Tim Drake or Dean Winchester or Kuroko Tetsuya. Seeing them let their guard down is the best.

This chapter was especially fun to write because I had no plan at all. None. I just had Jason and Dick and Tim together in the room, and I let them go and watched what would happen. It’s a very fun exercise, if you ever feel like writing but don’t know what to write about: just put two characters in a white room in your head and see what they talk about. This chapter was kind of like that. And it ended up being a major turning point, with Jason choosing to stay in the room at the end of the chapter and take care of Tim instead of leaving like I fully expected him to.

Speaking of Jason, his presence was incredibly important. Everything between Tim and Dick and Tim and Bruce was so fraught that even with the fever loosening his tongue, there was little chance of Tim expressing himself like this to either of them. But Jason was different. He was almost a neutral party, but he had proved during the rescue that he cared about Tim, so Tim saw him as a sympathetic ear, but without all the baggage that weighed down his relationships with the rest of his family. So when Jason asked how Tim was feeling, he was brutally, excruciatingly honest, and he didn’t worry about how it would make Jason feel.

And then he kept being honest, and he kept talking. Because these were things he had been longing to talk about, longing to express, and finally he had the chance. Jason was a safe harbor in the crashing waves that had been buffeting Tim since this ordeal began, and he fell into that with enormous relief. Dick and Bruce had both tried to force emotional conversations that Tim was not equipped to deal with, but Jason just asked. He just asked. Tim could finally relax, and he was so, so grateful for the opportunity.

It was also kind of funny, if a bit sad at the same time. I’m always a fan of injecting humor into my angst where appropriate.

Especially the part about his parents will probably easier to understand (not less hurting, but still) for him in your other fic, ‘my heart is in the puppet box’, bc his father does something so obviously wrong and hurtful. In YOFA, his parents have been dead for a while now, and the recent events have no direct connection to them. He’s had this ‘positive things only’ glasses on for a long time. He’s really awesome and deserves all the healing and support. (2/5)

And the part about making the arguments for the other person and shooting them down is something I really understand (though most of the time it boils down to, 'alright, I’ll do it like this next time, and no one will be hurt or sad or angry (again)’). I’m really glad he’s strong enough to stand behind his own pain and 'seek justice’, even if it’s against himself. And I’m also glad he has people like Dick around him, who won’t try to talk down his pain, who aren’t scared to apologize. (3/5)

I love them all. About my own stuff… I don’t really know how I’m feeling myself, so I’m not surprised I couldn’t find the right words. I just know that there’s something that’s happened a decade ago, when we were children, that makes me tear up just by thinking about it. And given the fact that objectively, it shouldn’t be such a big deal anymore, I feel like something is wrong with the way I’m processing/dealing with it. (4/5)

I thought at first that I was still angry/frustrated with someone, but slowly I’m getting the impression that it’s something else. I’m not really angry or blame anyone (maybe the adults should’ve acted a little different, but anyways), just frustrated. But I guess I’ll have to figure it out before I can start a healing process :) Again, thank you for your answer, and sorry for getting so personal.

Don’t apologize! Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me, again.

You’re right about how much courage and strength it took for Tim to take off the rose-colored glasses he had regarding his parents and really understand how much they hurt him. I didn’t really go into it in YOFA, because it wasn’t the point of the story, but he definitely had quite a few therapy sessions with Dr. Thacker before he was able to acknowledge the pain and damage they had caused him. (If it was anything like my own therapy sessions, Dr. Thacker would have gone through a list of symptoms or results of neglect with Tim and gradually helped him recognize himself there, then start to connect the dots between how his parents treated him and the struggles he faced in his current life. Once those connections were made, Tim was able to recognize and accept that he had been hurt, and then he was able to start to heal from it.)

“my heart is in the puppet box” is definitely a very strong contrast to YOFA in that way. In the last few chapters of “puppet box,” Tim attempted to confront his father, sort of the way he confronted Dick at the end of YOFA. He was hoping that Jack would apologize for the way he hurt him, and then Tim could forgive him. But Jack didn’t do that. Not at all. Instead, he treated himself as the victim and ended up hurting Tim even more. Now, Tim is going to have to find a way to accept and forgive the damage that was done to him, so he can move on, without the benefit of working it out with the person who hurt him. It’s a much more difficult and much more painful process. So yes, indeed, thank God that Dick is nothing like Jack Drake, so when Tim confronted him at the end of YOFA, Dick was not afraid to ask forgiveness, and so then Tim was able to forgive him and they could both heal.

Part 2 of the Broken Hands and Boys in Danger series (sequel to Year of Fallen Angels)

Summary:

Tim is still learning to live with his new disability. When he finds a technique that helps mitigate it and lets him enjoy something he thought he would never be able to do again, he just has to share.

Rated T purely for Jason's mouth. Everything else is perfectly G.

Notes:

I was inspired by this episode of Mini Primetime.

The comments on that video make me tear up.

Have I mentioned yet that Year of Fallen Angels is an id fic? Because it’s totally an id fic. Practically everything I write is an id fic of one kind or another, but this one, holy crap. And this scene with Jason and Damian definitely counts. But of course, Jason is a very id character.

If you’re not familiar with the concept of an id fic, it’s basically a fic that caters to the writer’s id, that deep down part of yourself that’s primal and ferocious and sometimes very dark. Id fics can explore concepts that are disgusting or immoral, and there’s nothing wrong with that. We need to explore those parts of ourselves so we can understand them and choose how we should live.

You could argue that hurt/comfort is a type of id fic in itself. Certainly my id fics are ones that cater to my need for someone incredibly hurt and broken to be pieced back together by loving hands, cradled and treasured and soothed and healed. I’ve said many times that both Year of Fallen Angels and Through the Walls were based on dreams, and dreams are where the id comes out to play.

So anyway. Before I wrote Year of Fallen Angels, I really didn’t like Damian. Like, not even a little bit. I was rather disgusted with him, all told. I still very much despise the Damian in canon, despite the inept attempts to make him “cute” and “sympathetic.” He’s still a bigot and an abuser, and his own trauma does not in any way excuse that. The only way I’ve been able to come to like Damian is by reading fanfiction that develops him, or, in this case, by writing my own. I only like him in fic universes where he’s softened and has actually apologized for his wrongs and made concrete, tangible changes to his actions and his attitude.

So yes, when I wrote this chapter, I really did not like Damian, not even a tiny bit. I tried very, very hard to be fair to him, because I knew I was biased by the way he treated Tim. I was actually quite nervous about writing him and read a bunch of comics that portray him to get a handle on his character (and yeah, reading more canon of him did not in any way change my opinion of him). I knew I had readers who were fans of Damian, and I didn’t want to disappoint them. And I also am just not a person to bash characters, in any case. Even when I genuinely dislike a character, I either avoid writing them altogether or just stick as close to canon characterization as possible.

I also knew that I wanted to redeem Damian over the course of the story. I had no idea how it was going to happen, but it was one of my major goals. So I had to start somewhere.

And I started with Jason basically saying exactly what I was thinking the whole time. It was incredibly cathartic to write. Every issue I read where Damian was tearing other people down or insulting Tim or just being a raging jerk, I was longing for someone, anyone, to sit him down and explain to him in a way he would understand that his actions were not acceptable and would not be tolerated. That his own trauma was no excuse. That things were going to change, immediately, or he would face consequences he would not like.

So yes, Jason became my avatar in the fictional world for that moment, that conversation. He expressed all the rage and frustration and utter contempt I felt for Damian’s actions. But it also made sense for Jason as a character to say those things. He’s very protective, and he had been somewhat traumatized himself by seeing Tim so utterly torn apart. He reacted as reasonably as he could, all things considered.

And it worked. Damian listened. It was the start of the change that needed to happen in his life. Most importanty, it protected Tim. Damian didn’t say a disparaging word to his face…basically ever again.