Batcest - Tumblr Posts

We as a fandom always forget about how Tim *is* Jean-Paul's Robin and that if we go in a New Earth and Rebirth mashup, it probably was hella shocking for Jean-Paul to come back to life and suddenly see Tim being this cold and lonely Red Robin who refused to work with the bats 🫣

Jean-Paul trying to adapt to be back to life and return to his life (going to therapy with Brian, either working again on WE or studying to be a nurse) and part of it it's fixing his messy relationship with the bats but he can't bring himself to ignore how awful they're being to Tim and he ends up screaming and asking what the hell happened and why is Tim refusing to talk to them and no one dares to answer that Robin was taken away from Tim when he needed it the most so JP decides to go and ask Tim himself...

//

*

*

Tim isn't that shocked when he opens the door and sees Jean-Paul standing there. It's the first time they see each other properly ever since JP came back to life around two months ago, yet Tim acts as if nothing had happened in those two years JP was dead. Tim smiled and tells him to come in, making two cups of coffee and asking Jean-Paul how he's doing and if Azrael is truly back (Valley always wanted to leave that life behind, after all).

Jean-Paul answers all the questions Tim makes, drinking his coffee slowly and slightly uncomfortable at the view of Tim's rich and *sober* apartment. It looks like those penthouses rich girls have on movies and Jean-Paul starts to realize that he never really asked Tim about his life, his parents, his dreams. They knew each other for years, and Tim saw Jean-Paul at his worst and did all he could to help, yet Jean never quite returned that favor. He feels a bit sick at that thought, and he clings to the empty cup as he looks at Tim intensively.

"Why aren't you Robin anymore?" Jean gasps, the words barely making their way out of his throat. Tim loses his warm smile, and then he's looking at Jean-Paul coldly and sharp.

Tim's hurt.

"Some people thought there was someone who needed Robin more than me," Tim mutters, fingers taping the wooden table, "I was fired, can you believe that? Guess they never thought I deserved to be Robin. I was always the one who had it *easy*"

"That's not true!" Jean-Paul yells, "I have seen you in the field, Tim. You're a great Robin. No one of us ever understood Batman like you did... God knows you understand the mantle better than I did," he admits bitter but genuinely, looking worried at Tim, "I don't understand, how could they fire you?"

Tim shrugs, "I knew Bruce wasn't dead, and they assumed I was doing - badly. Mentally, I mean. It's fine," Tim laughs painfully, "I got help from other people anyway. And I'm Red Robin now, so I don't have to follow their annoying rules."

Except that Azrael also tried to be alone for a while, and no one understands how hard it is better than him. There's no way Tim is truly fine with this.

"Help? From who?"

"From the only person who believed me and saw me worthy," Tim whispers, ashamed, "Ra's al Ghul. He helped me find Bruce, and he - saved my life too.*

"Oh."

"Could you keep that a secret? I have enough with the bats saying I'm being childish, I don't need them calling me a traitor too."

"I won't tell, but..."

"But?"

"You're Robin," Jean-Paul insists, "I - I cannot accept that it was taken from you. I don't understand!"

Tim smiles, a bit condescending, "You're too sweet. No one of the bats wants me as Robin anymore. Not even Bruce."

"Even after you did for him?" For me?

"Even then. I told you, it's fine," Tim sighs, "Bruce never saw me as his son, anyway. Makes sense he would forget about me when his blood son appeared, don't you think?"

Jean-Paul isn't a fan of the weight people put on bloodlines. In fact, he hates it. He wishes he wasn't a Valley, and he wishes he wasn't Azrael.

"You're my Robin," Jean whimpers, shaking despite the fact that it's not him who has been pushed away from the bats nor is him who got his mantle taken away, "You're my Robin."

Cold, soft hands take Jean-Paul's between his.

"Look at me," Tim says with that firm voice he has always had. It's unsettling to hear in someone so young (small), and it was even weirder back when Tim was thirteen, patching an injured Jean-Paul at the middle of the night and reprimanding him for being so violent.

Tim has always had deep eyes, as if he has been alive for hundreds of years instead of eighteen.

"You were Batman, and I was Robin," Tim says softly, comforting him, "But we can't be that anymore, even if we want to."

"It's unfair," Jean yells, remembering the arrogance of Dick dressed as Batman and that - Damian using the Robin suit that should be Tim's, "It's not how it should be."

"There's no way things should be," Tim argues, tilting his head and looking awfully sad, "That's the worst part, that there aren't instructions to who or what we should be. We need to decide so ourselves."

"I don't want to be Azrael," Jean admits, letting Tim guide him away from the table so they can lay down on the couch, "Do you want to be Red Robin?"

"... No," Tim says like it's a secret, "I don't want to."

"And what do we do?"

Silence takes over the room for a while, and then Tim's typical click of the tongue echoes too loudly.

"We will be Jean-Paul and Tim, that's what we are going to do."

The kiss and touches that follow would have been inappropriate for Batman and Robin, and they would have been inconvenient for Azrael and Red Robin. But for Jean-Paul and Tim? For them, kissing and sex are a natural path to follow.

There are some things that never change, after all.

JeanTim is so funny to me because you have Tim, high school dropout who ends up working at WE and since he's Bruce's son he's rich and everything; and then you have Jean-Paul, who was doing a master in computer science (?) and definitely had a scholarship due to good grades and he 100% would have done a doctorate and became a teacher had the Azrael mantle never reached him.

And they date. The school dropout swimming in daddy's money and the computer nerd date. Red Robin and Azrael dating *is* logical to some extent because the bats are the bats, but Timothy Drake-Wayne dating Jean-Paul Valley?

That's the juiciest gossip Vicky Vale has gotten her hands into. News! Spoiled rich brat gets himself a nerd toy to chew.

And, of course, JP is envied by all the queer geek community of Gotham. How does a guy that wears shirts with video games logos manage to seduce a Wayne boy?

Truly, JeanTim are never getting any privacy. They are just so interesting to stalk!

I want to make a fem!Tim fic inspired by the movie Priscilla but I can't decide who should be the male lead... So I'm asking you! Who do you think would steal Timothea & turn her into his perfect bride? 🥰

It's their turn! 💛❤️✨

(Extra context of the meme below (mini fic?)!!!)

After the events of Red Robin, Babs and Luke inform Jean-Paul of the issues and problems going on among the bats. During a mission, Bruce got hurt again and has been benched, meaning the situation of "Dick covering for Batman" is once again back in town. This creates a lot of tension among Dick, Damian, Tim, Jason and Bruce, making it almost impossible for them to work together.

Having their hands full with actual city saving, Luke and Babs called JP to ask him to go back and help for a while. Luke does apologize for it, since he knows JP is way happier in Europe and working on his own. It's not that JP doesn't like Gotham, but he grew tired of Bruce and Dick treating him like trash, so he left months after Jason had that - violent encounter with Tim on Titans Tower.

Jean-Paul admits that was part of the problem too; he didn't like it that Bruce seemed so at peace with Tim getting hurt. And Tim... Tim allowed Bruce to ignore his pain. That was maddening, btw, and Jean-Paul had snapped a few times against Tim, screaming that he shouldn't let Bruce walk over him.

Whatever. Jean-Paul had left. He went to Europe and traveled, getting rid of the order of st. Dumas by himself alone, and then getting rid of other groups equally awful and cruel. It was a tiring, slow job. He traveled a lot, and from time to time visited Brian in Spain to chat, but mostly he focused on ending the cycle of violence that he had been raised into. Eventually he did, and just months later, Luke and Babs call.

Being back in Gotham is - weird. It has been years, and Jean-Paul feels uncomfortable around Jason and Damian. His dislike towards Dick hasn't lowered, and it has stayed as a mutual feeling, although JP can't help to feel a bit of pity for Dick when he sees how tired and old Dick looks once he takes off the Batman cowl. But hey, didn't Dick argue that JP wasn't worthy? Then perhaps he should carry the weight of the mantle he insisted JP tainted.

Mostly, JP doesn't like being back at Gotham. Until he sees Tim.

Tim, who has - grown into such a smart, beautiful and sassy young man. Tim, who wears eyeliner, mascara and red lipstick. Tim, with acrilic nails as sharp as Catwoman's. Tim, with a perfume even more hypnotizing than Poison Ivy. Tim, lethal and beautiful. Tim, that makes JP's knees tremble as if he's a teenage virgin boy.

And it gets worse when they start working together. Huge news! Ofc JP had been called back because Tim refused to work with the bats anymore, and it's JP's duty to work with him and push him back to Babs (she does understand that Tim doesn't want to be close to the others, but she worries about Tim being alone, and doesn't want him going out without any support). And doing that is hell, because JP falls hard and deep for Tim.

JP is sure that he was completely whipped by the end of the third week working together. Maybe even sooner.

That's how Luke learns about it, since JP is awful at hiding his crushes. And Luke has the nerve to laugh, telling JP to ask Tim out as if Tim wasn't way out of JP's league! Does Luke enjoy seeing him suffering? JP thinks he will go crazy if he has to hear one more phrase about taking risks...

And yet JP follows Luke's advice: He asks Tim out.

He asks Tim out in a chat. A grupal chat. With Luke on it. And maybe he's hugging his cat George all the time while waiting for Tim to reply.

Against all logic, Tim says yes, and then texts JP on their private chat (the one that's supposed to be used for cases only), saying just one sentence:

"You're adorable, Jean-Paul."

For the record, the first date goes great. JP manages to get to third base, and Tim smirks smugly while murmuring "Puppy" on JP's ear, nails holding his long blonde hair to keep him in place: At Tim's mercy.

Okay but genuinely... Who do you think gives Tim the best 🥵😈 of his life? They all have their own talents, sure, yet someone has to be the best!

brudick for the ask game? or aztim if you haven’t done them yet

I'm gonna do both one after another, I hope it's okay!

AzTim:

SHIP IT!!! 💕💕💕

1. What made you ship it?

I think I could talk so much about how I picture their relationship and why I think there are many homoerotic tones in their relationship but mostly I got obsessed with them due to Knightfall presenting an scenario where Tim is the only bat around who is concerned about Jean-Paul and who is facing the mess next to him. The fact that in a certain way it was Tim who *made* JP Batman got me whipped.

2. What are your favorite things about the ship?

Their messy past! Knightfall is such a delicious event and I adore that JP and Tim have a lot of things only they know and only they lived. JP was the very first person to cover for Bruce as Batman, and Tim was barely begining as Robin. Tim WAS JP's Robin, and I don't think ppl talk enough about the feelings they would about it. Plus JP has a lot of catholic trauma and guilt which I think would make very hot if he dated an agnostic queer Tim.

Plus something something Batman/Robin rp

3. Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

As with Ra'sTim, it's mostly about the characters themselves. My perception on Jean-Paul is that he is a complex person, with trauma and pain, and I picture JeanTim as a complicated situationship. As much as I love dark scenarios, I don't really lean into making it abuse for the sake of it. For me, it's a relationship that is born after years of yearning and messy feelings, longing and hidden desires.

BruDick:

Ship it! 🤭

Certainly not the ship I'm known for but I like it!

1. What made you ship it?

Probably how kind the fandom is; opposite to other Batship fandoms, BruDick fandom has shown to be extremely nice and respectful, something that encouraged me to interact a little with their content, and I loved it. Bruce and Dick might not be my favs but I adore their trope as a ship and I think they CANONICALLY have an homoerotic subtone. There's a reason Batman & Robin were used as gay code for so many years, and ir was due to Bruce and Dick and their marriage!

2. What are your favorite things about the ship?

Definitely the fandom. As I said, ppl on BruDick fandom are extremely nice. You can open a fic or fan comic and not be worried about unnecessary hate because they don't rely on that. In fact, many BruDick media treats other characters with kindness and respect as well: It's so comforting to see BruDick fandom being so respectful to Bruce's female love interests in canon, as sexism is sadly a problem in BL fandom. When I see BruDick, I don't have to swallow the bitterness of seeing sexist stuff, or hate towards other bat children.

Also BruDick introduced me to the idea of Tim being their bio son and that makes me feral 🙏

3. Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

Probably not? I usually agree with most of their depictions. I personally don't mind if they're messy tho, because I see characters as dolls. If anything my problem is that I'm very bad at writing Dick because he is an awfully human character (he's not as frozen into an archetype as Tim, Jean-Paul, Ra's, Jason, Kon, Lex) which makes him a headache for me because I struggle trying to imagine how he would feel like. Hence why I mostly do BruDick as background and not as main in my fics.

They're fictional characters on a fictional world where the whole plot is that a middle aged man couldn't go to therapy and has been raising children to dress in leather and go out at night to beat criminals.

And you are "concerned" about batcest.

How, out of everything DC as a franchise and fandom has, is Jason and Tim (for example) kissing the point where people draw the line? Why is TimSteph an exception but DickBabs isn't? Don't they both have families and have made clear they don't see Bruce as a father? Why is CassSteph fine but JayTim isn't? How come these moral clutchings of pearls are always focused on the same "bat kids" and never include Duke, Luke, Harper, Jean-Paul, Helena (both Wayne and Bertinelli)? What about Kate? What about Selina?

Then again, this fandom from OP here is the same one that has tried to burn Ra'sTim dow by calling it incest (as if Ra's al Ghul, a man whose family ties are as complex as his motivations, would consider the protégée of the man that dated his daughter, related to him at all).

Truth is: Almost no bat ship is going to contain any theme of incest. Most of them aren't related by blood nor were they raised together nor have they showed traditional familiar dynamics. Jean-Paul on the late 90s was actually wonderfully written on that topic, as we see him considering Babs an older sister figure yet being attracted to her (a feeling that was mutual, but not at the same time). Found family isn't about traditional and conservative family roles, it's about a group of people that find comfort of some sort together, and the nature of their relationships can be complex, dark, awkward and even painful.

Sure, as a writer, I do use the term batcest and find it funny to play with silly ideas about their messy group of people in latex that uses violence to cope. Rationally, however, we are talking about drawings on paper that have been played with by multiple people for years. Wonder Woman was born from the kinky sex life of some man and people eat it up but God forbid someone on the internet writes BruDick (which was a huge icon of the queer and homosexual community for decades!).

I'm way too tired to keep going, but honestly? One could make an essay on the awfully conservative tendency of new people in fandom for sanitizing content and labeling all media and putting characters in tiny boxes. You CAN'T come to a fandom that has been around for years (and made up mostly by queer people and women, btw!) and decide that YOUR subjective and biased interpretation is the only correct interpretation. This is not how fandom works and even less how media comprehension works.

HI I thought you'd like to vote on this poll!!!! Because I hate how annoying people can be (and yes I voted for yes and that's the propaganda I'm trying to give here lol) don't feel forced to! https://www.tumblr.com/bibibusinessman/745499108695048193/do-you-support-batcest-even-for-not-legal-batkids?source=share

Just did! Also, thank you for sending it. I admit I love having an excuse to write my thoughts on fandom, meta and interpretations of media. 💕✨

https://www.tumblr.com/mistress-of-vos/745521314438184960/theyre-fictional-characters-on-a-fictional-world?source=share

"They" are all drawings on paper who are subjected to the rules of fiction, sells and the writer's in turn tastes. Fiction isn't real. Harassing people who draw/write about pixels kissing is bad and weird, actually.

Hope this helps.✨

Clearly you are someone who finds pleasure in harassing people over fiction and that doesn't deserve a second more of my time. I have a real life and I'm too aware of the actual global issues going on as to give a damn about people who scream in horror at pixels kissing.

That being said: Drawings aren't real. They can't hurt you. I hope one day your brain realizes fiction is non-real and that JayTim and BruDick won't come out of AO3 to haunt you.

Anyway, blocked! 💚

so i went to the blog of the person complaining so i could block them

(even outside of being anti "batcest" the way they doubled down on steph and babs not being batfam members despite how long and hard female comic fans worked to have them recognized as such was infuriating)

and they ship batjokes

and like ship and let ship

but,,,,

somehow shipping a man with his son's killer is more okay then shipping 2 ppl who share no blood, did not grow up together and almost certainly never referred to one another as siblings???

yikes on the hypocrisy

Not a BatJokes shipper being "anti batcest" 😭!!!

And yeah, even the weird attitude about who is "batfam" and who isn't was an screaming red flag to me. Personally I consider them all bats, because that's how their dynamic is. Now, asking WHO considers that they have a familiar bond is very different. As example: Jean-Paul is a bat ("batfam") but he has never shown to see anyone as family besides Cass, which was influenced by them having similar backgrounds and bonding over it.

Steph and Babs ARE bats, and they should never be limited to their role because of Tim or Dick. Just because Babs has a dad and doesn't consider Bruce a father, doesn't mean she isn't (canonically) a pillar of the bats and considered invaluable by Bruce.

Now, about BatJokes. I am a huge BatJokes (and Clex too) fan. Truth is that I don't go around considering if a ship is "darker" than another, I guess I simply run into ships I find interesting (for example Ra'sTim or SlaTara) and then, when they grow into me, I analyze their dynamic etc. So while I don't consider BatJokes more "problematic" than let's say BruDick, I find it very hypocrite to support the first one and attack the second, when in reality, censorship hates them both.

Like sure, you can like some ships and others not and it's valid to find things uncomfortable but GOD the hypocrisy here is Hannibal fans who are anti shipping level!!!

The anti rethoric has brainwashed so many people that some fans think "It applies to them but not me because -" and reality is that they will be burned as witches too when the antis come as they always do.

I genuinely find this tiring.

JeanTim: **happens**

Jason: "Jilted for a holier-than-thou hermit? How does Tim dare to refuse me? Is this a sick game meant to torture my heart?"

Dick: "... I think Tim just likes them religiously traumatized, tbh"

Jason, Damian and Jean-Paul dressed up as Batman running into each other on their way to Tim's room in the middle of the night:

(Context/fic idea:

Tim, needy omega, decided to call his three current alpha crushes and invite them to his room. He sent a picture where he's wearing a naughty Robin costume and joked about needing a Batman.

Tim didn't expect any of them to show up. He opens the door to three big, offended and rough alphas who look at him as if they were going to devour Tim.

The result is way better than sleeping.)

I can't decide so you guys help me!!! 🥹💚

This has been on here for TWO YEARS and I had never seen it!!! 😭

Anyway this reminded me how much I love writing and How much I want to go back to it. Real life please let me all I wanna do is write JeanTim 💔

Blow a candle

by Mistress_of_Vos

It’s not unusual for Jean-Paul to confess he has killed a man. In fact, Brian is so used to it it’s scary. However, it’s very uncommon to hear Azrael talk about Robin.

And this isn’t exactly what Brian would have wanted to hear about said little Robin. . . . // Or: Jean-Paul tells Brian about something awful that happened to Tim. Things escalate.

Words: 2129, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Batman - All Media Types, Batman (Comics), Azrael: Agent of the Bat (Comics), Robin (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Rape/Non-Con

Categories: M/M

Characters: Jean-Paul Valley, Brian Bryan, Tim Drake, Mentioned Bruce Wayne - Character, Background & Cameo Characters

Relationships: one sided Tim Drake/Jean-Paul Valley, Brian Bryan & Jean-Paul Valley, Tim Drake & Jean-Paul Valley

Additional Tags: Rape/Non-con Elements, Underage Rape/Non-con, Abuse, Child Abuse, Trauma, Psychological Trauma, Religious Themes, Guilt, Killing, Therapy, Confessions, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Tim Drake Needs a Hug, Jean-Paul Valley needs a hug, Whump, Bad Parent Jack Drake, Bad Person Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake is Robin, rape is not jeantim, No Beta, Short & Bitter, Tim Drake Angst, Good Friend Jean-Paul Valley

source https://archiveofourown.org/works/39714768