hi i just wanna say how much i LOVE your reverse robins!au &how much i wanna hear soooooooo much more about it????? rrs has never drawn me in, in fact i activefly avoid it, but rn im SO interested in your idea and concept!?
Aww, thank you so much! I really really appreciate it. I definitely feel you in not liking Reverse Robins -- Personally, it is one of those AUs that I have always liked the potential of, but never found many fics that spoke to me. Especially recently, as my fanfiction tastes have gotten far pickier over the years (which is a completely separate post/rant about fanon and DC comics fandom).
I'm currently outlining the AU -- I have the whole timeline worked out, and now I'm working on each individual installment (currently vibing with the idea of a series so that I can go back and toss in one shots, rather than one long fic. But I'm not 100% settled). If you'd like, I'd be happy to tag you when I start publishing the story! Or anytime I talk about the AU on Tumblr (Honestly convinced I'm gonna be babbling about it for a while on this here blog). In the meantime, though, have some semi-random thoughts from me about the general premise! If you want to hear more about any specific aspect, feel free to ask and I'll happily answer!
One of my biggest issues with Reverse Robins is that they tend to place Damian first, and then instead of actually working through the implications of having a traumatized assassin ten year old with no concept of a loving family place with an early brooding Bruce who does not have the maturity that comes from raising multiple kids, nor the support of Dick (who, let's be honest, is the major catalyst for Damian's development). Instead, it gets hand-waved away that "well, it just works out here, they're all chill" and Damian matures by himself into being a good big brother to all his siblings. Sure, I like Damian as a good big brother, but show me how you get there, you know?
I think that is at least somewhat solved with Duke being first, rather than coming in second. Actually, I hold that Duke makes way more sense to be the oldest in this type of AU for the following reasons:
The way he comes to live with Bruce, i.e. his parents being Jokerized in an attempt to recreate the Waynes' murder, is way more poetic of an opening for Bruce to adopt his first kid. It mimics Dick's origin well, and, like in my original post, imagine a 24 year old Bruce seeing a kid just like him?? Good Soup.
Lark. If you didn't know, that's the name Duke was originally considering before Bruce said it was "too soft" (Batman & The Signal #1). In RR!AUs, either they come up with some convoluted reason why the kids are called "Robin" that reads as forced or they choose an alternative name, such as "Shadowbat", "Batboy/girl", "Shrike", or some such. No hate to people who choose to do either, but… meh. I'm certainly not a fan. Lark, though? Now that's a nice bird theme that sounds pretty good, and is actually tied to the first person who holds the Mantle. So by the time Dick comes along, he can choose to be "Robin" and not stray far from either of his families' legacies.
As previously mentioned, I think it works better than Damian being first. For one, Duke's personality lends more to being an older brother (yes, I am thinking of that scene in We Are Robin when he takes Damian to the movies). For another, he'd certainly be able to mellow out Damian in a way just solo Bruce couldn't (not that I don't think Damian absolutely wouldn't try to stab Duke. He totally would try.).
Duke definitely sets up "Batman's partner as his Hope/Light" better than Damian. He really is, in a way, the spiritual successor to Dick as Robin (In this AU). A lot of RR!AUs tend to feel darker, and I think part of the issue stems from there not being the same philosophy/themes behind the "Robin" characters.
I've always thought of Fanfiction as a game of chess – all the pieces can only move in certain ways, and yet there are an infinite number of ways to win the game. Likewise, Characters only behave in ways true to their characterizations, and the stories come from seeing how they move within different situations.
The fun is figuring out a Reverse Robins AU that is actually accurate to the characters -- not just copying and pasting their traumas onto each other -- while still emulating of the original canon. The second big reason that I get turned off so easily by these is that they just transpose the characterization as needed. Damian becomes the solid older brother who is always there for his siblings. Tim (or sometimes Steph) just becomes the tragic Red Hood, angry at Bruce and a lone wolf who purposefully stays distant from the family. If Steph is in it and not Red Hood, then she gets slapped with the Oracle role and personality, despite not actually fitting her. Jason becomes… well, usually he doesn't have much since no one knows what to do with him if he isn't Red Hood. Though he does tend to feel like a slightly less depressed Tim. That leave Dick, who is just a classic cheerful Robin. Very rarely will Cass appear, but usually people just keep her as a silent, personality-less cardboard cutout more reminiscent of a movie extra (or her Post-New 52 characterization). I have read I believe one RR!AU with Duke, and while he didn't appear all that much, he felt more like a watered down Dick than himself.
This is what I'm hoping to avoid, by focusing on how each individual character would actually act in this situation, and not just what would make a good story that readers can point at and go "look, that references the original!"
For instance, Stephanie taking up a Red Hood role. In my AU, she's the Third Lark, and dies amidst a gang war at the hand of Black Mask (she's not replacing anyone in this AU, and Bruce willingly took her in, so it varies from War Games in a few places). Sure, I'm taking inspiration from the comics in that she's actually going to die, come back to life, and spend some time in the League, but here's where we split. Her death happened for a different reason than Jason's -- Black Mask is a different kind of villain from Joker -- Stephanie is a different character than The Red Hood. So she's not going to go on a murder spree trying to prove Bruce's philosophy wrong, and get vengeance for Bruce not killing Black Mask. I think something more true to her character is to focus on her insecurity -- she dies, and she thinks she failed. She comes back and takes over Black Mask's operation, shutting him down, brutally managing the criminal underbelly, all in an attempt to prove herself to Bruce. All the areas where she failed before, she now has iron-clad control of. Sure, the Lazarus Pit twists her to an extent, but how it does so differs from Jason because the underlying themes of each of their stories are different.
(Jason becomes the Red Hood because he thinks it is necessary, because he thinks Bruce doesn't do enough for the city, and his own death was proof of that. Steph becomes the Spoiler because she feels she was a failure who wasn't good enough and wants to prove that she is worthy of Bruce. That she can handle Gotham and all her criminals. But she's unable to see that the only one who blames her for dying is herself -- she never had to prove herself, she just had to come home. I might not be the most clear with this, and for that I apologize -- it will make more sense in the actual story than my unedited ramblings).
I have a profound passion for every single member of the Batfamily, and seeing how they'd all interact in this universe gets me so freaking excited. Thank you again for getting excited with me! I hope this post wasn't too awful to read, and that you stick around. I can wait to share more (and once agian, please feel free to ask any other questions you might have. I currently only have my sister and my google doc to rant to about this)