6. Have you written any fanfictions featuring OCs? If so, elaborate!
oh? is it time? is it time to drop the OCBFEU primer??
in short: yes, last year my friends came up with a whole "what if we invented a boyfriend for jason" "what if we also invented a boyfriend for dick in the same continuity" batfam AU with two (and a half) significant OCs. we write little informal fics for each other about them and my incredibly talented friends draw them and we also have an extended fantasy AU of the boyfriend AU that could fill about three TV seasons of plot so far. i love them. they are constantly rotating in the back of my mind; it's a fun time.
months ago we compiled a document with bios and a rough OC bf timeline (with bonus timkon) and: here it is! (content warning for a (past) emotionally manipulative relationship. also some brief underage drinking.)
Batfamily OCBFEU (OC Boyfriend Extended Universe)
Santi
jason’s OC boyfriend; ship name sanjay
[original santi post] [mammutblog’s santi art tag] [90kon’s santi art tag]
santi, short for santiago
5’7”; has to go up on his tiptoes to kiss jason
line cook by day, taking classes toward his teaching certification by night, also volunteers at an after-school literacy program in park row
gothamite through & through—grew up a few blocks over from jason, though their paths never crossed. has two siblings, an older sister and a younger brother, but is mostly estranged from them after their dad died. money was incredibly tight after that and santi still took odd jobs—including some for the falcones—to help his sister finish med school.
an old soul like jason, aka he’ll use his same phone til it’s a brick and does not understand tiktok despite kids at the program explaining it to him over and over
there’s probably a mildly popular tiktok series one of the kids has of them asking santi questions while santi is in the middle of something at the program, because everyone loves santi and he gives funny answers when he’s distracted
santi does not become a vigilante—he has enough on his plate, he’s (almost) a teacher—but he’s certainly not without his own set of skills. also he talks a very good game and can usually get by without having to physically fight (see: confrontation with nick in the below timeline)
Blue
dick’s OC boyfriend; ship name bluebird
[original blue post] [other original blue post]
ex-talon from an alternate reality
6’5” 😳
in his original universe blue was taken as a child and turned into a talon (in this version talons have boosted strength/healing, and were conditioned/brainwashed into carrying out the court of owls’ assassinations. also golden eyes) and doesn’t remember his name anymore. once he tumbled into this universe after an assignment gone wrong, he was free of the court’s orders and re-education for the first time and started slowly unraveling their mental conditioning
he rarely speaks, and takes a while to consider his words when he does. when he texts it’s mostly emojis because he prefers them
when left to his own devices he’s very gentle and likes to bake
he had short/shaved hair as a talon. once he’s in this world he starts growing it out and prefers it long
he eventually makes an excellent crime-fighting partner for dick; he knows and understands dick’s skills enough to trust him to take care of himself, so they work very well together. that said, if you really hurt nightwing you will be reminded very quickly that blue spent most of his life as a nearly unbeatable assassin.
he eventually takes up the superhero name flamebird to go with nightwing
Nick
tim’s OC ex-boyfriend; no ship name we hate nick
nick is a GU college freshman (18 at the time) tim meets playing tennis at the local rec center while tim is avoiding the manor in the early red hood reconciliation days
at first nick definitely plays into the fact that tim desperately craves attention at this point in his life. nick is at turns overwhelmingly nice and startlingly cold, and more and more often “playfully” mocks tim, dismisses his thoughts because he’s “young” (16 at the time), etc. nick is, essentially, a jerk who, despite—or perhaps due to—being a teenager himself, does everything he can to feel superior to tim.
nick also drags tim along to parties/hangouts with his college friends so he can show off that he’s dating tim drake-wayne. other than late-night parties with his friends, though, he insists on keeping their relationship a secret.
none of the bats know about this as it’s happening; tim eventually breaks it off and pretends it never happened.
rough OCBFEU timeline
jason and santi meet while jason is still sort of on the outs with the family but not in Revenge Mode anymore. first jason meets santi as red hood, and later realizes his main apartment/civilian ID lives in the same building as santi when they run into each other in the elevator.
sanjay identity shenanigans ensue! santi is very taken with red hood. santi thinks his upstairs neighbor “uhh, call me jay” is an inconsiderate dickhead for seemingly working out/moving furniture around at 3am sometimes. seriously, how many muscles does someone need. that’s ridiculous. santi also thinks jay has a very nice smile but that’s irrelevant.
meanwhile tim meets nick at rec center and they date for a few months. it’s not a great time for tim and he eventually breaks it off.
santi starts seeing red hood more because red hood will just. appear and shadow santi when he’s walking home from work late, and helps santi out of a tight spot with some of falcone’s men at one point (we learn santi used to work for falcone a few years ago; he needed the money to put his older sister through med school. santi’s not involved with the mob anymore but the past dogs his heels sometimes). santi and red hood start hooking up, though hood still won’t show his face.
santi volunteers at an after-school literacy program (while taking night classes working toward a teaching certification). one day santi’s neighbor jay shows up to the bake sale fundraising for the after-school program, and they have a cute interaction until there’s a surprise rogue attack and the school goes on lockdown. jay disappears; red hood shows up minutes later, helping santi secure the kids before going after the rogue. red hood gets hurt and in the aftermath santi, patching him up, pieces together that red hood is his neighbor jay.
shortly after this santi gets kidnapped in public along with a random teenager (tim drake) who happened to intervene and get himself kidnapped too. the kidnappers saw santi and hood together after the rogue attack, so they’re trying to get information on hood out of santi. tim runs interference as best he can and takes a few hits as a distraction, and soon enough red hood shows up to dispatch the kidnappers. in the aftermath red hood is cold and snappish to tim (jason thinks tim was stalking santi) (to be fair, tim was) and this leads to santi learning a bit more about jason’s family. this also leads to jason breaking up with santi because it’s too dangerous (for santi) to associate with him.
santi does not agree with this decision, and there’s a lot of pining and angsting until they get their shit together over the course of another few months. coincidentally jason is reconciling with his family in the meanwhile and getting his feet under him emotionally.
once they’re together jason and santi are like. incredibly domestic. totally in rhythm with each other. somehow jason now has the healthiest most settled relationship of any bat.
meanwhile in blüdhaven, blue pops in from an alternate reality where the court of owls rules gotham. blue was taken as a child and turned into a talon; when he’s thrown into this universe, he’s free from the owls’ control for the first time. it’s a rough landing—he ends up being fished out of a dumpster by dick and even though blue runs away, he imprints hard on one dick grayson.
Tim (18 now) realizes his longtime crush on kon might be reciprocated; cue panicking.
tim lies his way into a gay club to Research (because nick always kind of mocked tim for not having dated any guys before him; tim thinks he will have one shot to not disappoint kon so he has to figure shit out). gets drunk, starts making out with someone who is not uhh handling him gently. gets spotted by jason and santi, who are there on what was supposed to be a fun date, and they intervene. at first jason is annoyed, thinking tim’s following him again, and then realizes something is Wrong. he and santi dispatch the asshole other guy, and they bring drunk tim back to crash on jason’s couch.
the next morning tim is hungover at jason’s and mortified. santi makes him sit and eat breakfast and tim is like i’m sorry, i wasn’t even following you guys this time, i swear. which leads to tim haltingly explaining the nick thing. santi and jason (who is lurking in the kitchen listening to this convo) don’t know who this ex guy is yet but they’re gonna kill him ❤️
tim’s net gain for this ill-fated excursion: one (1) splitting headache and one (1) new older brother unit.
meanwhile back in blüdhaven blue is slowly un-conditioning himself, keeping to the shadows, and leaving little gifts on dick’s windowsill. the gifts are like, keychains, a lost earring, a random postcard. all tend to be blue or have blue in them, so dick starts nicknaming this mysterious gift-giver blue.
during patrol a week later jason finds tim on a rooftop and has an awkward but earnest talk with tim about uhh. consent and healthy relationships and stuff okay yeah we’re never talking about this again but also if you ever need anything. call me right away or i’ll kill you. okay good talk.
blue gets invited inside dick’s apartment for the first time. god bless bluebird they’re in their own little world over here.
tim and kon kiss 😳
an anonymous, “scandalous” tabloid story from someone claiming to have dated tim drake-wayne drops. resulting fallout, salacious rumors abound about tim + the waynes, etc. also, obviously, bruce and the family find out about nick. jason and santi figure out who nick is and separately visit him to put the fear of god in him.
nick: what the fuck, are you with the guy from earlier? i got the message! tell that guy i’m moving to star city this fucking weekend!
red hood: what guy
nick: you know the, the guy with the earring and the tattoo and he said if i didn’t lose tim’s number and leave town i’d have an accident
red hood: huh. no, not related. so you never made a deal with me. bummer for you, i still get to break one of your arms.
(jason obviously realizes the other guy was santi so he goes home and climbs into bed where santi’s awake reading and he’s like “productive night?” and jason’s like “mmhm, and i heard you had a productive day” and santi shrugs and then jason kisses the hell out of him)
over in blüdhaven blue witnesses dick get really upset over something (this article) for the first time. dick says “i’m going to be away for a few days but you can stay here while i’m gone, okay?” (when dick returns blue isn’t there but dick’s apartment has been deep-cleaned) (this leads to dick insisting blue stay there more and more until they accidentally end up as roommates)
batfamily deals with the nick aftermath and much-needed convos are had with tim. this also brings santi more into the family fold because everyone approves of him essentially making nick shit his pants.
bruce, up to this point, has been kind of wary of santi solely because santi is NOT immediately impressed with bruce. santi sees bruce as being on thin ice until he gets proof that bruce is in fact doing his best as a parent and then they have a slightly more chill dynamic.
meanwhile in gotham, mid family crisis, dick is having his own crisis/rooftop breakdown with tim and jason about having feelings for blue and going through his gay awakening at the ripe age of 20something and jason is very upset that he has somehow become the to-go gay relationship advice sibling.
because yeah, between dick and jason, JASON’s relationship is the more normal/aspirational one for tim looking for like queer mentors. bluebird is great and perfect for them obviously but they are not a blueprint for anyone else.
dick: [sitting on blue’s shoulder after describing how blue wooed him with random tchotchkes on his windowsill and then moved into a corner of his living room for a month and—] anyway do as i say not as i do
dick literally let a secret organization-trained slightly undead assassin into his house for fun bc he got like a few cool rocks as a gift
if tim asked dick for advice dick would be like “oh shit you like-like him? i just thought you were really touchy friends”
no one should ask bruce for advice, ever
so here jason is, somehow the most stable gay of the family
by the time damian appears with his first crush jason is like [sighs] [gets out the powerpoint]
timkon officially get together!
aaaand then months later dick shows up to family dinner with a giant ex-talon in tow like “heyyyyy guys, so guess what—”
there are also plenty of fun post-timeline adventures like “blue and santi get kidnapped together to target nightwing and red hood; kidnappers regret this almost immediately” and “tim takes blue on restaurant adventures because blue really likes fancy food; one day they run into nick who says something nasty about tim and blue breaks nick’s wrist (tim’s net gain: another older brother unit)” and “santi is frantically trying to catch the bus one night and steps on one of poison ivy’s vines—whoops, it’s sex pollen; santi gets introduced to PAID forms” or, alternately, “jason gets hit with the poison ivy special and that’s how santi finds out he’s on jason’s PAID form” and “bruce and blue surprisingly get along very well and trade sparring tips (meanwhile, bruce is trying so hard to get santi to tolerate him and it’s slow going)” and also “dick realizes everyone else in the world knew he and blue were dating and in love six months before he did.”
extra content:
santi, blue, and kon end up in a robin bf support group gc. one day kon gets added to a group chat that’s just like [(372)846-XXXX and (124)234-XXXX has added you to a group chat] and nothing happens there for like 2 hours he’s just like
kon: ?
kon: hello?
kon: is this spam? is there such a thing as spam gcs?
kon: am i getting blackmailed
kon: how did you get this number??
(blue added kon while santi is in school)
the gc also ends up nonstop unintentional comedy due to their communication styles. kon’s gen z (👍 = declaration of war) and santi is technologically elder millennial/boomer (thought 🙂 was a normal smiley until corrected)—but blue is none of the above. blue knows the nuances of every emoji but has no social rules for using them. he’s an emoji artist. he is unbound.
from @90kon, in a version of the timeline where santi hasn’t seen jason’s face/doesn’t know his name before their sort-of breakup:
after their not-yet-together-break-up they should have an argument. like santi confronts jason about him saying he doesn’t want this thing between them to go on but wont give santi an honest answer but also keeps lurking and santi cant move on like that. bc either he’s done with him or he’s not. and umm yeah jason is not rly saying much but eventually santi is like alright. just tell me this: do you want this or not? forget about everything else…do you want me? and santi barely has time to finish his question before jason says yes. in a tight voice. i want you so much it scares the shit out of me. and ummm well eventually santi is like look. you can have me. but i have conditions.
and he’s like. whatever idk uhh don’t lurk out my window unless you’re gonna come in. dont investigate me; if you want to know something, just ask. at the end he should say "and i need a name. it doesn't have to be your full name or anything, but i need to call you something other than red." and jason is quiet for so long santi sighs and is like. "yeah i didn’t actually think that one was gonna fly. whatever, forget i said--" and jason says "jay." like it just slips out of him. and santi stills, looks at him, and from the way jason said it he somehow knows it's real. it could be short for any number of names but it's real. so he repeats it. "jay."
family game night from @mammutblog:
collected OCBFEU tag
[OC boyfriends created in a lab by @90kon, @mammutblog, @cairoscene, @vinelark, @feyburner, @bluecrystalrainingdaggers!]
no but you don’t understand when i say i want dark dramatic over the top queer shows what i mean is i want them to stand on a landing strip and have person a be unable to look the other into the eyes and tell him he never loved him and only ever used him and person b to challenge that because he’s so sure in his love and have person a falter for just a moment as he allows himself one hug goodbye whilst person b tells him it’s okay because he believes this means they will figure things out together only for person a to pull back hand person b his death mother’s necklace and ask him to think of him sometimes before stepping in the airplane anyway. that’s EXACTLY what i want when i say that