she said this is not a love song. this isn't fantasy land.

[irrelevant]

I think I want to do comicsbigbang again this year, if the mods decide to do another. I already have the outlines of three projects I could flesh out for it. But.

I have a new AU I've been toying with this last month. And I really kind of want to write it. It's going to mean serious research, which makes me cringe for thinking about wasting that kind of time on fanfic when I have RL writing commitments. I'm not even sure if I could kick the story into shape within the temporal parameters I'd be setting for myself, but.


It’s July of 1945. World War II is over and the cold war is just beginning. Tim Drake is sixteen and uncertain with it. His parents hate his best friend, Jason, his girlfriend likes other girls better than boys and wants *her* best friend, and Tim is just confused. He's not sure what he likes or hates, if anything. He just wants his life to start making sense again. Then Bruce Wayne comes back to Gotham County for the first time in twenty years the same week the circus comes to town and Tim meets a flyer named Dick Grayson.

Tim is pretty sure life is never going to make sense again.


*bites lip* I don't know. Does that sound like something worth reading?

Comments

[glymr]

Does that sound like something worth reading?

Yes. Absolutely, a million times yes.

But it would take a lot of research, for all the historical stuff, so I understand your reservations. But god, I would love to read that. So much.

[irrelevant]

I am *this* close to talking myself into it. It's slowly but surely taking over my brain the way Road to Damascus did earlier this year, so I'm probably going to end up writing it whether I finish it for CCB or not.

[gloss]

Oh, my *god*, I would read the hell out of that. I love postwar-through-late 50s settings, I love the relationships you've suggested here, I love it all.

I am making grabby hands and hungry noises at the monitor. Just so you know.

[irrelevant]

I love postwar-through-late 50s settings
I do too, and I love the Golden Age, and I think the desire to write this is a combination of those loves. The story would be, in a way, a Golden Age AU; in a bunch of other ways it would be something else entirely.

The thought of writing this scares the hell out of me, and at the same time gives me a jolt of adrenalized elation. Because there's so *much* I want to do with it, so much I *could* do with it.

I want to paint the classism of the time via the attitudes of the Drakes and their social circle toward people like Jay, Stephanie and Dick.

I want Cass to be Tim's girlfriend. I want her to be the half-Chinese daughter of extremely rich David Drake; I want to show what it would be like for her: sort of accepted for her father's money, but looked askance at and down on (especially so close to Pearl Harbor) for her mother's skin color and background.

I want Bruce to have left Gotham right after his parents died, lived all over the world, and not come back until now. I want him to have been an unofficial agent during the war; I want to explore what those different influences would have had on him.

And of course I want to show a very different beginning for Batman and his Robins, and for Batgirls and Spoilers. Babs and Pop Gordon will absolutely play a large part.

I don't know. I write gritty sci-fi and off the wall contemporary stories RL. This would be the first time I took a real stab at a historical novel, which really terrifies me. There are so many ways I could screw this up.

If you want to suggest research sources and books for time period, if you've got any, I would love to have them. And good grief, I'm so sorry for dumping all this enthusiasm on you. It's just taken over my brain recently, and I haven't had a chance to bounce ideas off anyone yet.

[irrelevant]

I mean David Cain. *laughs at self* Typing too fast and not watching closely enough.

[gloss]

Holy cats, don't apologize! I'm flattered that you shared your excitement with me and, trust me, I'm really excited for this, too. I'm especially taken with Cass's troubled positions in society, I have to say.

In terms of research, hmm. I have a couple articles I cobbled together for someone who was writing an early-1950s novella, which I could send along? I also unreservedly love Homosexuality in cold war America: resistance and the crisis of masculinity. Both are a bit later than your period, but most immediately post-war stuff I can think of concentrates on middle-class suburbanization.

ANYWAY. I suspect that the fact that you're equal parts scared and excited about the idea is a *very* good sign. Challenges are good! (Or, um. So I'm told.)

[irrelevant]

Thank you so much for your encouragement and your suggestions: I ordered a copy of Homosexuality in cold war America, and I'd love to read those articles.

Challenges are good, absolutely. That's what I keep telling myself. =P

*goes back to reading and panicking*