Ignore literally every typo n stuff. I wrote this up as a summary of a 3hr convo I had w a buddy not long after the Jason Fear Augmentaion issue dropped 👍
(Below cut bc I'm insane👍👍)
Opening with Tim at Jason’s funeral, just going through the motions. It passes quickly. It’s only been a couple days and it was a small funeral of close family and friends. Everyone is a little wary of Bruce being there since it is kind of his fault. Tim goes home and continues to monologue to himself about how Jason can’t be dead, and the story begins taking a similar route to Bruce being lost in the timestream during RedRobin 2009, including Dick coming by to check on him.
Debating on if/when I would want to resurrect Ives or Lonnie. Ives would be decently early on, before Tim has gotten the chance to leave Gotham and start looking for Jason/processing death. So that Ives ends up dragged in because he’ll know he died. Versus Lonnie being resurected after Tim has ran rampant for a while and mostly overcome denial of Jason’s death. (Either way) This leads Tim into a mode of, “well, if you came back, he can. He has before.” Which is a very in-your-face Bargaining Metaphor. I’m thinking Lonnie returns because of Darkseid stuff during Tim’s world-tour. He ends up acting as a moral compass but moreso in the sense that he’ll ask why Tim chose to do/not do certain things. (They’ll get some degree of philosophical about it all. Morality Napkin will be mentioned). It’s after Lonnie’s return that Tim starts to privately get necromantically dubious to potential bring Jason back. This inevitably gets used on local civillians and teammates. He’s insane. Continuously through this bargaining arc, he’s mulling over how and why Jason “”died”” (double quotations because Tim thinks it’s not real) and where he might really be. It’s important that the reader also thinks Jason can/will come back. We gotta tie the audience to Reader-Insert Tim Drake, lol. Have flashbacks to Jason having a “civillian” life and being a discount personal Oracle to Tim and just general brother bonding, since Tim had more recently leaned back into properly balancing his work/vigilante life with civilian life. And not once else was really checking in and hanging out with Jason anyways, since they’re so busy and he’s clearly so capable. Maybe Tim was already actively working on a backout for the brain alteration, but couldn’t work it out before Jason had a lethal reaction or offed himself. I think Tim should have some kind of grudge and/or animosity towards Bruce before storming off. I think Tim should blow up at Bruce in the back during Jason’s funeral yelling that Jason’s “”death”” was Bruce’s fault.
As for running rampant, I’d like to bring Pru back into light, she’s fun(and whenever he gets back to Gotham, before(/if?) Jason comes back, bring Tam in again. I really want him dealing with villains other than the usual Gotham crowd, because there’s monotony in throwing the same guys in jail/asylum over and over again. You know what they’re going to do and how. It’s easy to not kill them or even want to. Other villains, though. Other states or countries.. Yikes. It gives perspective. At some point, I want him to grieve over a villain that dies while he and his crew are fighting them. He doesn’t kill. This is his fault. Maybe a member of a temporary teamup(someone local to the area) dies. He should’ve been able to save them. It’s his fault. Again. There’s a villain that continues to let Tim percievably get close to winning, but continuously kills some other hero and/or civillian. TIm doesn’t kill this villain, but a teammate does. “Tim/[“hero” name]. You don’t kill.” “And I didn’t.” “You let me.” Some degree of shock and satisfaction, but mostly worry. Maybe “It’s equally my fault I let you off [villain] as it is my fault that it’s my fault [causalties] died.” “But [villain] killed them. How is that your fault?” “Then how is it my fault you killed [villain]?” It’d be so morally fucked up if he resurected villains because at least if he did it wrong, they were already dead, right? Kill ‘em again. 99 pile up. I’m making him resurect 99 things. I feel evil. I can’t let him resurect Ives, though… I can’t. I think if, during his necromancy era, he did think of resurrecting Ives, he’d think about it way harder than other subject. He’s a civilian, he’s been dead for a while, he had/has cancer, he has family, he doesn’t know about the reality of heroes and stuff. I think Tim choosing not to resurrect Ives would be a key shift to move on from bargaining.
Enter in depression about his friends and family and civillians and villains, even, dying. I think he’s still being morally dubious, but again, another key turning point of him choosing whether he’d choose a heroic or villainous path. He’s good at acting as a villain, he might’ve even enjoyed it for a while. Maybe even notice that he can get away with more, knowing that his foil heroes aren’t going to kill him… He gets perspective. He flips back and forth, uncertain of his place in the world. Stuff about him taking the Renegade mantle and Slade popping up a couple times during that. Whatever, I’ll need to read Stuff to understand better( or maybe Druid& will dump on me 🥺). Slade dies, I guess. Joey, Rose and Tim grieve together. Rose and Joey have done it before, and Tim’s mostly through his Jason Journey already. It’s nice.
Tim comes home. And, I don’t know what order/if I want to do all of this, but.. Is Jason back already, or does that happen after Tim’s settled back into routine(choosing to balance civvie and vigilante life)? Tim gets a new gifted vigilante name, but from who? Pru&co? Once Again Risen Jason(new bread type)? Joey/Rose? Slade? Fuck, man.
Fuck, grief that Jason’s back? I don’t even want to bring Jason back at this point, actually. Keep him dead. Would be funny if Tim’s recent necromancy just let’s him called the beyond dead to catch up over the phone, lol. He won’t bring him back, that’s an established agreement between them both. But the concept of secondly resurrected Jason having to cope with his own death and moving on from his own death. The coming to terms with being your own person(Tim) and coming to terms with being a new person(Jason)... They’re fundamentally different than they used to be. They’re different together. Blah, blah. Either way it’s a probably nice ending.