If You Ever Have The Time/interest, Would You Break Down The Canon Surrounding Stephanie’s Economic

"tim is just like bruce" "tim is a mini batman" listen to me. fuck that. tim literally says he is not like batman and he does not want to be like batman. multiple times! throw that shit right out. do you wanna know who tim is a mini-me of?

listen to me. grips you by the shoulders. listen.

tim could be the second coming of lois lane.

they both have this incredibly nosy streak and an inability to stay out of situations if they think they can improve them. they are both fuelled by the need to do what is right and if no one else is gonna do it then by god they will.

"i care so much that i have to do something about it" is a fundamental tim and lois trait. "a locked door just means you have something to hide and i will find it" is also a fundamental tim and lois trait.

they are so similar. i NEED lois to get her hands on tim. i need them to get into hijinks and shenanigans together and i need clark and kon to look at each other and go "jesus christ there's TWO of them now?" as they hurry to go put out a fire. i need lois to hone and refine tim's hubristic streak and i need tim to enable her nosy snooping tendencies. tim & lois could be something beautiful. does anyone hear me. hi for the love of god hello is anyone listening

I had a Batman AU thought that I wanted to share involving eldritch?sentient!Gotham. Gotham is alive, old and deeply rooted magic of ??? origin (that doesn't appreciate being poked and prodded so attempts to discern what she is have ended badly), and she is... mercurial, to put it diplomatically. She can favor or sabotage people on a sliding scale of intensity - basically good or bad luck on the lower side of the scale (finding a $20 bill vs stepping in a gross puddle kinda thing), and on the higher side it's things like a bullet missing when it shouldn't or a piece of building falling onto someone. She also has boons, things she grants certain people - primarily Bats, but there are a few Rogues that have their own boons because again, mercurial. Boons bind someone to Gotham, make them always find their way back and eventually need to come back, but if you're close enough to Gotham for her to offer a boon, it's probably your home.

Batman is her... warlock? Paladin? He's pledged his life to protect Gotham and is in tune with her, and he protects the city and keeps it in balance, and she grants him her favor constantly and has given him a powerful boon (able to hide in whatever shadows there are, even slight ones, and virtually disappear in them even if you're watching him). When he takes Dick in and Dick creates the Robin mantle, Gotham loves it, and Dick gets his own boon (able to land where he intends to, can't be killed/seriously hurt from a fall).

Jason though is her absolute favorite son, her pride and joy. He's born of Gotham, steeped in the city, of it and for it, and he loves Gotham and when he becomes Robin he fights to make her better and bring light to her. She gives him the boon that he knows every part of the city instinctively. He can move through it easily, knows the streets and buildings by heart, knows on some level what's happening in different places (not always exact, usually gut feelings), and he can always hide in it when he chooses.

Then he dies. (Away from Gotham, because if he'd been in Gotham she never would have let it happen.) Gotham and Batman are a wreck together, they're angry and grieving and losing it, everything is coming apart and it's Bad. (The Joker had a boon from Gotham, because he's also of Gotham, and she's not good or evil but simply is. However when he killed HER favorite son, she tore the boon and her favor from him and wrecked what was left of his mind. He still feels chained to Gotham and Batman, but this is no longer a city that loves him.)

This is when Tim pushes to become Robin, and both Gotham and Batman hate it. They both want to lose themselves in the rage and grief, but Tim won't let them. Batman/Bruce comes around first, but Gotham is still seething, and she sabotages Tim at every turn: things that should hold his weight break or creak loudly, shadows never seem to hide him, evidence gets lost or trails go cold when he tries to follow them, buildings constantly crumble around him, goons always seem to get hits on him that he should be able to dodge or avoid, he gets pitched into the harbor CONSTANTLY.

It gets to a point that Bruce is seriously considering firing Tim purely because it's notably more dangerous for him as Robin than it ever was for Dick and Jason (even though he and Dick both try to convince Gotham to calm down and lay off). Tim eventually tracks down the best place to communicate with Gotham directly (much as she tries to deter him) and they get into a fight (reminiscent of Tim getting into fights with Bruce to make him get his shit together).

Tim argues that if he hadn't stepped in, Bruce would have either gotten himself killed or crossed a line he couldn't come back from, and it would have destroyed him AND the hope left in Gotham. He would have been considered a criminal and likely would have become a Rogue, with no 'Batman' to step up and stop him. He argues that Batman needs a Robin to fight for and protect, and without one he'll backslide and get worse again, and if that happens, Gotham will be torn to shreds. Tim points out that Jason loved Gotham and fought for her, and it's disrespectful of his love and his memory to let everything fall to pieces after he fought so hard for her.

It's enough to convince Gotham to back off on her sabotage, though she's still hurt and sulking. Bruce still isn't sure about Tim not having Gotham's favor, much less a boon of his own, but Tim argues that he'll get good enough to keep up with or without Gotham's help - which he does.

Over time though, Gotham watches Tim fight to protect Gotham and Batman, and she admits she was wrong in how she treated him. She slowly starts to extend her favor to him and eventually approaches him and offers him a boon. Tim, however, turns her down. He's seen how badly Jason's loss and Gotham's grief and anger affected those closely connected to her, and he knows taking the boon will tie him to Gotham permanently. He believes those connected to Gotham and Gotham herself need someone who can be more objective and keep a level head, and he's secretly kind of worried that if something happens again, if Bruce and the Bats eventually tire of him and don't need him, he'll be trapped in Gotham. He also just doesn't totally trust Gotham even though he loves her.

Gotham's hurt, obviously, but she understands and doesn't lash out, recognizing it's her own fault. She does give him her favor though and swears to never rescind it, even when she's upset with him. Tim's gotten this far without her favor or a boon, but it's nice not to have to worry about getting dunked in the harbor for the third time in one week anymore (though she hasn't done that in a year or so).

Then Jason returns, and Gotham is having THE BEST time. Her baby boy! Is back! He's bigger now, and he's a lot angrier and hurt in a lot of ways, but he's! Back! She's a little worried about how angry he is at Batman and the other Bats, but Jason is her favorite and she can't turn him away or deny him. She still favors him, she just... makes sure she favors the Bats enough too to keep them all on an even playing field. They'll work it out. Tim managed to get her to calm down, so she's confident her current Robin will help the family again.

Then Jason goes to the Titan Tower after Tim, and initially she assumes they'll talk and things will be better, but when Jason comes back she sees that he went and ATTACKED Tim.

It's the first time she's ever been angry at Jason, and she drops a brick on his head (while he's wearing his helmet, he's still her favorite), and she threatens to collapse the ceiling of his apartment. They get into a fight. Jason came away from his fight with Tim thinking Tim was impressive as Robin, but he doesn't want him in the suit so he still went through with beating him unconscious. He DID notice Tim doesn't have Gotham's boon, so he doesn't understand why she's so upset he roughed the kid up.

Gotham is pissed and a pissed Gotham is hard to communicate with outside of raw emotion, so eventually after suffering several indignities of light sabotage, getting caught yelling at the street or a building while the manhole cover or windows rattle angrily, Jason goes to find Tim and ask "hey what the FUCK" (haven't fully figured how this changes Jason's interactions with the rest of the Bats, but he is begrudgingly impressed that Tim made it through the start of his tenure with Gotham actively sabotaging him, then argued an eldritch city into behaving, then turned down her boon and STILL came out of it with her undying favor).

(Gotham, in this AU, is NOT a fan of the al Ghuls at all. Primarily Ra's, at first, because he wants to purify Gotham/control her, and she is NOT a fan of that thanks. He's tried attacking her (destroying parts of the city), threatening her, trying to determine the origin of her magic, enslave her, trying to bargain with her, seducing her, and she is having NONE OF IT. Going into Gotham is a nightmare for anyone with the League, because while it can be difficult for her to get a hold of them, once she does she sabotages the HELL out of them. Getting cut on rusted rebar, falling off ledges, sinkholes opening up under them, one of them managed to get bitten by a rat and catch the bubonic plague. Ra's has, on one memorable occasion, been knocked into an open manhole and then almost drowned in sewer water that carried him out into the harbor where something (possibly Croc) tried to eat him, and he broke his arm while climbing out.

Talia got a reluctant pass since she seemed more interested in Bruce than Gotham and Bruce reciprocated, but Gotham doesn't appreciate Talia's attempts to lure Bruce OUT of Gotham. When she finds out Talia kept Jason away? AND convinced him to go after Tim? Talia is on the permanent shit list too.

When Gotham finds out about DAMIAN, Talia can't set foot in Gotham without having SEVERAL chunks of building being dropped on her from above.

Though when Damian DOES show up, Gotham is quick to claim him and offer him a boon. He's the son of Batman, he's a future Robin, and if he's given a boon, he's tied to Gotham and can't easily return to the League (mostly Talia and Ra's). Win win!

Except then he attacks Tim, and learns VERY swiftly that it's not good to piss off the sentient eldritch city you accepted a boon from. He's laid up with a migraine and all kinds of awful symptoms of an illness (nothing fatal but definitely awful) until Tim recovers, and then Tim gets to play mediator between the Bats and Gotham AGAIN as he tries to explain to Damian the nuances of Gotham as an entity and what being one of her favored/booned actually means, AND lecturing Gotham about sabotaging another Robin/giving him a boon without making sure he understood what he was accepting.)

HI 👋 Fabulous AU you've got here.

I particularly enjoy how complicated Tim's relationship with Gotham is. In fact, Tim's later years could be misunderstood by the Bats as Tim being her favorite (hear me out).

If Gotham never states who her favorite is, all the Bats see is that Tim, despite not having a boon, has Gotham on his side against the other Bats (really, Tim just isn't attacking/harming the others like they are to him, but it's about perspective).

It's also kind of heartbreaking that Tim has an additional condition that sets him apart from the Bats. He's the only one to be immediately hated by Gotham. He doesn't have a boon (though later that's a choice). He is consistently reaching out to Gotham to actually communicate and fix their issues.

Might I add an additional part for extra angst? We'll take the fanon idea of Tim stalking his heroes from a young age.

Gotham sees that another being idolizes her paladins and grants him the small boon of his camera never making a sound, being unnoticeable, and the flash never being visible unless Tim wants it to. Tim is okay with being stuck in Gotham due to his parents never taking him abroad with them

After Tim forces his way into Robin, though, Gotham rips this away from him, destroys any need for him to stay (she wants him to leave her alone to her own rumination), and actively sabatoges him.

Because it was taken from him once, because he's felt the pain of that loss, because the sudden emptiness was a gaping hole he had to spend years coping with, he never wants a boon again. He doesn't know if he'll be able to handle the sudden deprivation once more.

This is the start of him not trusting that anything lasts (especially since a retracted boon was so rare it's only been rumored in the past [since Gotham doesn't care for "good" or "evil" it's harder to get on her bad side]).

I'm curious what all of the boons alloted to each person are (very curious if/what Commissioner Gordon's)

The thing you don’t understand is that Bruce knows where all of his kids' safehouses are. Jason’s, Dicks, Tim’s, all of them. Bruce cannot read the signs that show his children are mad at him, or need space, because he’s never really had this relationship before and Dick was his first and even when mad Dick required touch and Bruce’s presence. But when they leave, when they storm off in exasperation and hol up in their safehouses, believing he can’t find them for a bit, he stays away. He knows where they are. But the safe house retreat is enough of a sign to him where he understands. And stays away. Dick tests it once, after an argument, going to a safe house that Bruce himself created for him, and still Bruce doesn’t come. Dick makes sure every camera catches him, makes it very obvious to where he’s going, but either Bruce doesn’t see it… or he’s actually giving dick space. Jason also tests it, unwillingly, promising to visit on Saturday and then getting grievously injured, but the cave is too far for his state so he drags himself to one of his most secure, most secret safehouses and crashes there, only to wake up a day later to an anxious Bruce, just Bruce, not Batman, hovering around him, holding Alfred food and Jason just… has a moment of enlightenment. They share this info with the rest of the birds and… it helps. Because now they understand. And they realize they don’t have to hike halfway to Kilimanjaro for Bruce to respect and leave them alone, they can just chose a nice safe house he bought for them and live in comfort while they stew. It’s not a perfect system, but it works. And for the bats, that is perfect enough.

the misinterpretation of a lonely place of dying by later retellings drives me nuts because ‘tim finds out who batman is’ is nearly not as much of a big deal as ‘tim doesnt want to be robin’ in the actual origin and it pretty much sums up whats wrong with modern tim drake. ALPOD is a tragic story of a twelve year old boy who had everything and willingly gave it up for a greater good. he is not like dick and jason who became robin to escape tragedy nor bruce who had everything and then lost it. robin was nothing but a curse he accepted to bear and he did so because of his selflessness. that selflessness is his driving rod, his smarts and physical talent are only the tools he uses to achieve his goals. he is not ‘the smart one’, he is a sacrificial lamb for a cause he became an unwilling spectator of. a twelve year old boy thought ‘people need saving, its that simple’ and put on the clothes a dying kid not much older than him wore because of nothing more than his selflessness and everyone he loved paid the price for it. he paid an even greater price for it.

Lantern AU part 2

(This is part of an AU in which some of the lantern corps work differently for a bunch of reasons, here's a post explaining it:

https://www.tumblr.com/glitter-stained/758411385986220032/okay-so-to-be-honest-as-neuropsychology-major?source=share)

Kon: Holy shit, Rob, what's with the makeover?

Tim: Um yeah, so I guess I'm a Green Lantern now.

Kon: Well damn, I die and you become a whole new superhero? When did that happen?

Tim: Uh, somewhere between attempts 76 and 88 I think...

Kon: What?

Tim: What?

****

Cass: ...

Floating indigo ring:...

Cass: *squints*

Floating indigo ring: *flickers*

Cass: *tilts her head*

Floating indigo ring: *flips around itself*

Cass: *blinks*

The double dozen of goons she was busting: ...we could... Leave you guys to it?

Cass and the floating indigo ring: Shhh.

*****

Steph: Hey dad, it's visiting hour.

Arthur Brown: Stephanie? What are you doing in jai-

Steph: *punches him in the throat*

Steph: *kicks him in the shin*

Steph: *punches him in the face with a bright green giant fist construct*

Steph, looking down at the green power ring on her finger: Now where did that come from

****

Bonus:

Hal, coming back to earth after hearing there's a bunch of new lanterns in the rough that spawned around the same time: So what's been up with Gotham?

Bruce: My blood pressure

Costume. Chitons.

Viper: Skull has the weirdest knowledge and skill set I have ever seen. Like, watch this.

Viper: HEY SKULL?

Skull, across the room: YEA?

Viper: why does antifreeze taste shit?

[skull wanders over while speaking]

Skull: ethelyne-glycol is a chemical compound toxic to the human body, and it’s used in antifreeze. Since it tastes sweet, people kept killing their spouses by mixing it with jello, so they eventually added something else to make it gross.

Viper: ok, what’s the most interesting place you know of?

Skull: uhhh, well, glacial Lake Agassiz existed a long LONG time ago, and it was essentially created by a glacier damming a river, and every so often it would create these MASSIVE floods when the ice lifted.

Viper: ok, how many times did humans domesticate cats?

Skull: actually they domesticated themselves at least three times.

Viper: alright. Who is the current president of the United States?

Skull, cheerfully: no clue!

[viper looks directly into the camera, gestures at skull, then walks away]

i feel like playing kon-el-themed eleven truths and a lie again!!!

Whumptober: Day 17

(The Cyclist AU)

Background: Jason never came back to Gotham. There's no Red Hood.

During his Brucequest, Tim gets assistance from an unfamiliar person.

The map is destroyed.

Kid's staring at it like it's a crowbar, and Jason can't help feeling a twitch of compassion for him.

“Well,” he put his hand on the kid's shoulder. “We had a good run.”

The kid looks wrecked, honestly. His eyebags got bags, and there's this glimmer in his eyes that makes him wonder if part of the reason B took him was to prevent him from becoming a future raugh.

(Kid managed to set up a clone lab, become an international thief, and there's this whole thing with Ras he very carefully doesn't think about.

And that's just in three months.)

“It's over, Kiddo,” he tells the boy. “There's nothing we can do now. This was your last shot. You said it yourself.”

“No!” The kid says. “No, no, no, no. No. It's not– no, it can't. I'm not– this isn't over. This isn't. I can't. You can't make me. You can't – I'm not going. I'm not. You can't make me–”

“Wow, chill there,” Jason stops him. “I don't know what you're talking about, but it's like. You said it yourself. This was the last shot to find your - whatever cave or something.”

“It's not a cave,” the kid spits. “I've already told you - it's an ancient site used to worship a bat-like deity, which seems to be a local version of Pazuzu, that was discovered in –”

“I get it,” Jason stops him. “It's some important Batshit thing. But the map is gone. What are you gonna do? You said it yourself. No one's been there for over 70 years. What are you going to do? Get an Ouija board and start questioning the last archaeological team?”

Uh.

Oh no.

Jason recognises that look

This Look™ 

There's something sharp in the maniac smile on Tim's face.

“I mean… I bet you always wanted to break into a nuclear weapon factory in North-Korea.”

That crazy bastard.

Jason REALLY likes him.

Test Compilation of my writing submissions for the Mecha AU started by @keferon.

Friends in Every Universe

Part 1

Part 2

Part 1.5

Part 3

Part 4