And another one!

[coalcube]

I see my nemesis getting a fic that I love
And I'm like, "Fuck you" 
I guess my 10k letter wasn't enough
I'm like, "Fuck you and fuck morbane, too"
Said, "If I was a long commenter, they woulda gamed for me"
Ha, now ain't that some shit?
(Ain't that some shit?)
And although there's pain in my chest
I still comment it's the best
And runs to coal to shout "Fuck you" 

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Assignment Deadline: Monday 18 December
Main Collection Opens: Monday 25 December
Madness Opens: Tuesday 26 December
Author Reveals: Monday 1 January


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Comments

[(Anonymous)]

DC

I mean, you can very easily imply Batman without ever having to mention him at all? Like, "Robin definitely wasn't supposed to try to handle the Joker on his own, but the JLA were in space and there was no one else that he could risk calling in," or, "If he got out of this alive or he was going to be grounded until he was thirty," or, "All those mind-numbing hours of going through emergency drills down in the Batcave were paying off now," or whatever similar thing suits the situation at hand.

[(Anonymous)]

But would that comply with "DNW even a trace of Batman"? Surely implying that there is someone giving him drills in the Batcave or grounding him or setting limits on what he can take on is more than a trace of Batman.

I could even write an entire fic solely about Robin's relationship with Batman without ever mentioning him by name or epithet or having him appear onscreen! But a DNW isn't about avoiding saying certain words.

[(Anonymous)]

They would think about Batman if they were kidnapped by the Joker!

If I were kidnapped by the Joker, I'd be too busy thinking about the Clown Prince of Crime to think about anything else.

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, Jason Todd canonically thinks about Batman, so...

[(Anonymous)]

dc

That doesn't mean that he (or any Robin) has to do that in a fic! "This happens in canon" doesn't mean "if this doesn't happen in the fic, the fic will be OOC".

[(Anonymous)]

Even if I wasn't hoping for superhero help, I would probably be thinking about the people I love who would be worried about me if they knew.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, firstly, this isn't the "DNW even a trace" DNW, the one referenced in the OP was just "I DNW (insert character(s) here)". Otherwise the OP presumably wouldn't have found the question of whether mentions were okay ambiguous enough to ask about!

And secondly it just seems like you're bending over backwards to find reasons to claim this DNW is impossible when it's extremely straightforward and I don't see how it would be particularly difficult even in 1k of canon-typical casefic. I've read plenty of actual Batman comics where the characters manage to go for whole pages without mentioning or thinking about Batman.

[(Anonymous)]

Right, slice-of-life fic can be fine and not boring, but if I steered away from anything that came close to referencing Batman, I would end up writing something flat and boring and that probably had no kind of arc to it at all.

Like if I got a prompt to write 1000 words of Alfred helping Robin with homework, and there was no DNW, it probably still wouldn't have much Batman in it, because actually Alfred and Robin *are* cool on their own and don't need to constantly revolve around him. But to give it enough emotional resonance to try to work as as story and not just 1000 words of algebra problems, I would probably have something about Alfred thinking about when Bruce was a kid, and his mixed feelings on how early the Robins are working in heroes in comparison, and Robin would be dealing with expectations and the complications of having a foster/found family helping with homework instead of their bio parents, and probably at some point Alfred would tell them a story about Young Bruce, and maybe Robin would get to learn some things about who Alfred was before being Batman's butler and what he gave up to do that and how he made those choices, and maybe they'd talk about Robin's school and some of the social issues of being Bruce Wayne's teenage ward, and to stay under 1000 words I'd probably come up with a lot of things I'd like to have as emotional undercurrents in the story and cut half of them.

But if I cut all the ones that had anything at all to do with Batman, all that would be left would be a couple of generic people doing algebra problems, and it would be badfic.

Re: the fic of your dreams

[(Anonymous)]

Either historical f/f with canon divergence AU, or scorching m/m xeno! <3

[(Anonymous)]

Creepy girls being creepy. Perhaps with a touch of eldritch horror!

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, the point of my original Doctor Who example is that you probably could do it pretty easily most of the time. Robin and Kid Flash on a date actually might not reference Batman at all and it would be fine! Robin working a case on his own against one of his own baddies could just focus in on the case! Alfred probably goes and visits a lady friend on the town on his afternoons off and they have a date at a shooting range and he puts Bruce out of mind entirely! Just because someone is the protagonist doesn't mean literally everything revolves around them. But there are some combos of characters where you really can't completely erase a third person from their dynamic, because that dynamic does revolve around the third person.

[(Anonymous)]

Ayrt

Or you might write the same fic from Robin's POV and have him think about his bio parents, and build the emotional arc from there. Dick remembering how his mom used to help him with homework and how after his parents' deaths he never thought he'd have this again, Jason or Tim marveling at how they never had this, Damian thinking about how different things were with the League.

If you can't write about two characters - any two characters - without either falling back on their connection to a third character or writing badfic, that's a you problem.

[(Anonymous)]

It seems like you think very little of the character of Robin.

[(Anonymous)]

+1

Robin's not just an extension of Batman. Neither is Alfred.

[(Anonymous)]

I was trying to stick with a generic Robin there since we haven't specified one. If I was writing Teen Titans Go! Robin the details would obviously be different than if I was writing Steph.

[(Anonymous)]

Do you think you could write about Dick remembering his mom and his parents' deaths and how he didn't think he'd have family again after that and not have it be at least a little bit about Bruce? Really?

I mean, I think we are mostly just working from a different definition of what counts as involving Bruce.

[(Anonymous)]

Ayrt

Yes, I think you could easily make his feelings about his present situation all about the scene you're actually writing, which involves him and Alfred and not Bruce. Does he generally think of Bruce when he thinks of found families etc? Sure. But that doesn't mean he'll think about Bruce every time, and that it's OOC for him to spend a 1k or even 3k scene just thinking about his relationship to Alfred instead.

I don't think the issue is that we have different definition of what counts as involving Bruce, it's that we approach fanfic and character dynamics differently.

[(Anonymous)]

I suspect we are in the same fandom. I sincerely hope you get what you want because I would read the heck out of it!

[(Anonymous)]

mods please send out assignments and pinch hits already and save coal from our own interminable stupid conversations

(or at least someone find some entertainingly batshit letter wank or something)

[(Anonymous)]

You may be right! And probably if I actually sat down and wrote it out in an actual scenario I would find myself writing more specifics to the situation and less the kinds of things I mentioned above. Like if the prompt was "Alfred gives Tim advice about Bernard" or something I might not even notice if Batman didn't come up, because that's going to be about parts of their lives that aren't really about Bruce at all.

And certainly there are people who don't really write with much interiority at all where it would be way less of an issue, and that could still be good fic.

But with the DNW in play, even in a situation that doesn't need to be about Bruce I would still feel like I was tiptoeing around the existence of Batman in their lives and why in this specific fic they aren't thinking about him even in situations where they generally would.

[(Anonymous)]

Long, detailed, deeply fucked up worldbuilding.

With background lesbians.

[(Anonymous)]

I have a "no character x" dnw paired with a requested character who wouldn't exist without them. I have written dozens of fics without mentioning the undesirable. "No x" means I don't want to see their name in a gift ever, at all.

[(Anonymous)]

There are multiple issues of Nightwing and various Robin titles in which Batman is never mentioned once. There are multiple issues of Batman specific titles in which the current Robin and Alfred interact in ways that don't mention Bruce at all. Alfred was Dick's butler in Bludhaven for a bit. He was Tim's at Tim's boarding school. He was Damian's guardian during the Bruce is dead thing. If canon can provide multiple examples of these people interacting without mentioning Batman, fic writers can too.

[(Anonymous)]

Coalie streak on the floor from rolling round in impatience.

I want my assignment now. I haven't signed up in like five years, cater to me.

Fandoms you had to drop

[(Anonymous)]

As we wait for assignments, are there any fandoms you wanted, but had to drop for reasons? Any regrets about that?