HOLY SHIT YOU FINALLY RELEASED THAT ONE SHOT!!!!!! FUCK YESSSSSS ITS SO FUCKING GOOD!/*]’sumsic,wxs
Needless to say, i love it. Because wow, its literally the good timeline where Wayne gets to live a happy life and things are just much better for everyone. The lightning that caused the outage def helped Wayne lol. Im just so happy that Warren and Bobby are still in Wayne’s life (especially now that its implied that the former and Wayne are dating AND Warren is away from his bullshit of a dad. Living his best life with his mom, icy bestfriend, and witchy girlfriend. Now all we need is a certain speedster to join ;) ) Though i do have to ask, Maximoff will somehow still be able to be friends with them right? If you can make Warren and Bobby be there, Maximoff can also be there but in a another body that isnt Wayne. Please, i need my chaotic friend group to be happy and away from Gotham together 🙏 (“Do you we’re friends in every universe?” ahh)
Also i love how you wrote Harvey’s inner conflict and his hesitance to be a parent figure for Wayne because yeah, being a parent is fucking hard and scary but at the end of the day, what matters is that you stay and do your best. I like how Two Face is helping in his own way and make Harvey face his fears and shit alongside Matt. Which speaking of him, will we see something going on between Matt and Harvey in ADIAML? Or is it just that one druken thing and simple tension? I like Matt and Wayne’s relationship or what little interactions we saw. Its just nice :] oh and btw, i will die for Coco. I love that when Harvey just literally finally accepted being a parent to Wayne, he immidiately get faced with one of the most common question a kid would ask a parent, “Can i keep (insert pet) please 🥺?”
Now on the occult side… hm. So Thomas or Tommy as Harvey mentioned is docile(?) here. Like if we take what we see here in this oneshot and compare it to ADIAML, we can be somewhat sure that Thomas was the one who dragged Wayne away and pull her into the fontain but the question now is.. why? Why do that? Im thinking back to what Rio keep saying how magic shouldnt be at Gotham at all which makes me think that the reason why he’s fine in this oneshot then the main fic is bc he’s absorbing or just influenced by the negative emotions by the people around Wayne like Bianca and the bat family or just Gotham “putrid soil” that Rio keep bringing up. That’s just a theory A MARVEL/DC THEORY, THANKS FOR WATCHING for now but who knows
Though i have to say, i like Rio is mentoring Wayne directly now. Its cute and neat but i do wonder why she wasnt able to do it in the main fic. Ofc, the bat family is probably the reason but like, what’s stopping her to secretly mentor Wayne without the batfam knowing? Or does batman set up something or whatever to make him aware of magic shit around his manor? No.. that wouldnt make sense since Wayne still practiced the occult in the main fic in her room and there’s that ghost thing that’s haunting Cassandra and Damian. Well whatever the reason, no wonder Rio is very pissed with the batfam bc she cant fucking mentor her damn apprentice and be with her wife and son. Her being the cop that talked to Wayne during the outage makes me wonder if that also happened in the main fic and Wayne just never remembered 🤔. The Morpheus cameo was neat and i like how soft he talks to Wayne 🥺
And ofc Miles and Wayne’s friendship here is absolutely beautiful. I love their dynamic and how Miles just accept her witchy stuff is just UHG. The Peter Parker cameo as a teacher is cute too and you are absolutely right that he would be a good teacher. Though, i do have to ask but has Miles been bitten yet? Like is he spiderman yet and will he tell Wayne about it? To tell you the truth, idk much about comic!Miles, just what i know from the movies and small stuff ive heard from the spiderman game. So what angle are you going for? (Also will the spiderverse be canon in this one shot or the main fic? Or does Miles live a normal life with no spider timeline weird shit going on?). Also also, will Peter Parker and Miles Morales be in the main fic? (“Do you we’re friends in every universe?” ahh)
Lastly, the batfamily… fuck. Why cant they be blissfuly unaware of Wayne’s existance goddammit 😭. Though if that Martha Wayne Foundation letter is anything to go by, something tells me Bruce is somewhat aware. Im honestly a bit worried where that plot point will go but Wayne now have her uncles, Daredevil, Rio, and her witchy powers, so if the batfamily really actually do something, Wayne and co are prepared.
Overall, i will say it again i love this oneshot and i’ll be happily waiting for the next chapter of ADIAML! Hope you have a good day/night!
OH MY GOD I MISSED YOU!!! AND I MISSED YOUR ANALYSIS SO MUCH I WAS SO HAPPY TO SEE YOU POP ON MY INBOX!!
Very much glad that you had fun and enjoyed the one-shot💖💖 Some fluff for you before going back to the angst of ADIAML
“do you think we’re friends in every universe?” STOPPPPP. But genuinely, that’s one of my favorite things about this timeline too. It’s not perfect, but it’s softer. Wayne got pulled out before Gotham could completely consume her, and because of that, the people around her get to heal too.
Warren especially makes me emotional in this universe because for once he’s allowed to just be a teenager. Not a product of his father, not constantly performing perfection, just existing with people who love him. Bobby too, him still sticking around no matter the universe feels very correct to me. Some bonds are just inevitable lol.
And yes, I absolutely think Maximoff would still find their way back to them somehow. Maybe not in the exact same role or under the same circumstances, but there’s something very cosmic constant about their friendship to me. Like no matter how different the timeline gets, they still gravitate toward each other eventually. (Side note: It's mentioned that Bobby was trying to get a new student's attention by getting Warren on his baseball team. Im pretty sure you can guess who that student is 👀✨)
The idea of them all ending up together away from Gotham genuinely makes me so emotional though. Just this weird chaotic little friend group healing together somewhere safer, somewhere quieter. No constant survival mode, no city trying to eat them alive, just living.
(Though knowing them, peaceful probably still includes property damage and at least one emergency a week.)
OH HARVEY DENT HOW I LOVE YOU SOOOOOO!! One of the biggest things with him is that it’s not that he doesn’t care, it’s that caring makes everything terrifying. Being responsible for someone, especially someone as vulnerable as Wayne, means there’s now something he can lose. And Harvey is so used to ruin, to failure, to becoming the worst version of himself, that the idea of being a parental figure genuinely scares him.
His hesitation comes from all these thoughts of 'What if I hurt them?', 'What if I fail them?' or 'What if I become the thing that ruins them?'. And ironically, Two-Face helping push him toward accepting that responsibility is very important to me. Because in his own weird way, he does care too. He just expresses it differently. Matt too honestly. The both of them kind of corner Harvey into confronting feelings he’d rather avoid.
As for Matt and Harvey (can't believe i ended up becoming so fond of these two 👀✨), I think so!! I’ll just say there’s definitely something there beyond a one-time drunken thing and unresolved tension. Their relationship is very complicated to me in a way I enjoy writing because they understand each other in uncomfortable ways. Matt sees through Harvey a little too well, and Harvey both likes and hates that.
And I’m really happy you like Matt and Wayne’s interactions too. I wanted there to be this softer underlying dynamic there. Matt overall should just get to parent a kid as well in my opinion.
ALSO COCO!! Harvey pretended to hate him those first months and then became a proud cat dad. Just like a true hispanic parent. Now, he needs to nap on the couch with Coco on his chest because it helps him lol
MAGIC LORE YES YES YES!!! Oh i have been waiting for this-
The contrast between Thomas here versus in ADIAML is very intentional. In this oneshot he feels more aware and present, compared to the main story. And Rio constantly bringing up how magic shouldn’t exist in Gotham is important too because Gotham doesn’t just have darkness. It feeds it. The city itself feels contaminated in a way, like anything supernatural gets warped by prolonged exposure to all that grief, violence, obsession, fear, etc.
I don't want to spoil a lot bc we will be seeing more about this in the main story, but I think I have been very obvious that Wayne tends to absorb or carry the emotional weight of everyone around her already, which would make her a very easy anchor point for something occult.
(but your theory is actually SO CLOSE to what I have in my plans omg I love your brain so much-)
As for Rio and Wayne, GOD I LIVE FOR THEM IN THIS ONE SHOT!!! The difference between this timeline and the main fic isn’t just Rio decided to mentor Wayne now. It’s more that in this universe there were less barriers between them early on, emotionally and circumstantially.
In the main fic, Wayne is so deeply embedded in Gotham and the Batfamily’s orbit that almost every supernatural connection they could’ve had gets interrupted, delayed, distorted, or hidden. Not even necessarily because Bruce put up anti-magic defenses (which he didn't-), but because Gotham itself is difficult. Possessive, almost.
And Rio’s relationship with Gotham is VERY bad.
Like she genuinely does not think Wayne should be there. At all. To her, Gotham is basically a rotting wound trying to consume someone who should’ve never been left in it for that long.
So even when Wayne practices occult things secretly in the main fic, it’s fragmented. Self-taught. Unstable. There’s no proper guidance or safe structure around it. Rio being absent there matters because Wayne is essentially interacting with forces she don’t fully understand while emotionally isolated and surrounded by Gotham’s influence.
Meanwhile in the oneshot timeline, Wayne gets interrupted less so Rio has more access to her. And there’s emotional openness earlier and the environment is softer overall. Which means mentorship can actually happen instead of constantly being fought against by circumstances.
And yes, Rio being pissed at the Batfamily is absolutely part of it because from her perspective? Her apprentice is trapped in Gotham, her wife is suffering, her son is suffering and she can’t properly reach any of them. I’d be mad too honestly 💀
(And absolutely. Rio may have appeared before in the main fic and Wayne just doesn’t remember properly, because memory and perception around supernatural encounters in Gotham are not always reliable.)
MORPHEUSSSS!!!! Him being soft with Wayne means a lot to me. Unlike a lot of entities around Gotham, he doesn’t really look at Wayne with expectation or disappointment. There’s this understanding there that’s very quiet and gentle. (God I love him-)
Miles and Wayne, my crafty and creative duo (they're meant to parallel Maximoff and Bobby, too!!). There’s something really healing about Wayne being around someone who looks at all the weird occult stuff and instead of going 'what’s wrong with you?' he just goes:
'okay 👍'. Like, Miles is curious, concerned sometimes, definitely confused occasionally, but he never treats Wayne like they’re wrong. And for someone like Wayne, who spends so much time feeling out of place or too strange for everyone around them, that acceptance matters a lot.
Peter as a teacher just makes too much sense to me. He has that very specific exhausted but caring energy that works really well with kids. He’d absolutely be the type of teacher students accidentally get emotionally attached to.
As for Miles, I’m kind of pulling from multiple versions of him while still making him my own thing. There’s definitely influence from the movies because I adore their emotional core and his relationships there, but I also really love aspects of comic/game Miles too, especially his quieter thoughtfulness and how adaptable he is.
And yes… Miles has already been bitten in the oneshot timeline! He’s still early into it though, so he’s in that awkward stage of 'why is my body doing this', 'why can I hear everything', 'why did I stick to the ceiling' and 'OH GOD-'. Which honestly makes his dynamic with Wayne even funnier because now BOTH of them have weird secret things going on lmao
As for whether he tells Wayne. Eventually, yes. Mostly because Wayne is frighteningly observant and also surrounded by enough supernatural/weirdness that Miles realizes hiding “I got spider powers” from them specifically is kind of pointless.
(Spider-Verse stuff is a bit more complicated though 👀 I don’t think I’d go full multiverse chaos in the oneshot itself because I want the emotional focus to stay grounded on the characters and their relationships.)
(And Peter and Miles in the main fic hmmm. I’ll just say: some people keep finding each other across universes for a reason. They won't be a huge part tho, just cameos✨. Do you think we’re friends in every universe? continues to haunt me actually 😭)
The urge to just go can the Batfamily PLEASE mind their business for once is so real. Them being aware of Wayne in any capacity automatically changes the tone of everything. Even if they’re not actively interfering, Bruce especially is not someone who can ignore a thread once he’s noticed it exists. That Martha Wayne Foundation letter is exactly the kind of detail that implies this is already on his radar, which is honestly more stressful than open conflict sometimes.
But I also think what makes this interesting is that Wayne isn’t unprotected anymore. Like, they’re not just a kid orbiting Gotham in isolation. They’ve got actual anchors now. People who understand different parts of what they’re dealing with.
So if the Batfamily ever does push into their space in a more direct way, it’s not going to be a 'helpless' situation anymore. It becomes something way more complicated, since it's two systems colliding.
Also I think Bruce being somewhat aware is the most dangerous version of him to deal with, because that’s when he starts observing instead of acting, which means he’s building conclusions silently in the background.
But yeah, Wayne is not alone in this anymore. And that changes everything 💖✨
I’m really glad you’re enjoying the oneshot, and I appreciate you taking the time to sit with all the details and theories like this. It means a lot more than you probably realize. That kind of engagement is honestly one of the most motivating parts of sharing writing.
And thank you for your patience with ADIAML too!! I’m doing my best with it, and I’m really excited for what’s coming next.
Hope your day/night is gentler to you than the last one was 💖✨