#new ask game: send me sections with typos and see if i actually notice them on the fifth read through

[writerseven]

i would love commentary on the ending conversation between jason and bruce from present if you're willing (sorry i tried sending the actual passage but tumblr kept rejecting my ask for some reason when i actually pasted it) love your fics!!!

Thank you!! yeah tumblr is a nightmare, but no worries about not pasting the section; this works too! I'll include it here myself

When he returns to his bedroom, Jason is finally sitting up, hair still rumbled and face imprinted with the pillow's creases. He looks around the room before squinting up at Bruce.

(gonna be real I just love the contrast of Big Scary Jason having pillow imprints on his face. also I just found another typo from doing this booo)

“Where's the kid?” he asks.

Bruce raises his eyebrows in judgment. “It's Monday. He's at school.”

Jason, as always, falters and then steels back up at the implied insult to his intelligence. “Yeah. Right.”

Before he can wake up enough to become irritable, Bruce glides over to him for a deep and forceful kiss. Jason catches up after a moment, grasping handfuls of Bruce's shirt to hold him close, and then shoving him away.

In terms of word choice/little micro writing decisions, describing that judgmental 'he's at school' took me a minute. Even though this fic is 100% Bruce's PoV I originally imagined that moment more from Jason's, where it's easier to just describe Bruce as judgmental and Jason as upset. Writing it in Bruce's PoV unlocks all the underlying motivation—Bruce knows he's being a condescending dick, doesn't even think Jason is stupid, and just figures the insecurity will put Jason on the defensive—and I wildly over-explained all of that when I first wrote it

(A consistent problem for me: I am always trying to talk myself down from explaining too much, and reminding myself I can trust readers to put things together themselves. That's also just a good writing tip in general! Trust your readers to pay attention!)

“Alfred kept breakfast warm for you,” Bruce says, belaying whatever Jason meant to say and redirecting to safer topics. “I think he mentioned showing you the remodels to the library when he returns, if you're up for it.”

Jason grunts, shifting off the bed. “I'm taking a shower.”

It's not a no. Practically the same as agreement.

OKAY so writing any given scene is a lot easier when I know what I'm trying to accomplish with it, and this scene was for two things. The first was just to sort of establish time moving forward and give a baseline for what everybody will be doing.

Lure to present all take place over the weekend with very few pauses left to the imagination between events, but I knew I was going to jump ahead a little bit going forward (and switch temporarily away from the Bruce/Jason/Tim trio with Dick's PoV), so I wanted to briefly establish that Jason is still at the manor even with Tim gone, and Bruce is probably using various little activities and excuses (and Alfred) to keep him around. It may just be me, and I definitely get far more intense about time lines than most people, but I knew it would bug me if I didn't give some indication of where Jason would be and why. He probably wouldn't stick around without the Tim-excuse on his own, thus Bruce guiding to safe topics like “Alfred wants to show you stuff!”

(also: “It's not a no. Practically the same as agreement.“ he’s just the WORST)

“Jason,” Bruce says, stopping him as he reaches the bathroom doorway. He's had a month to adjust to it, but the mere ability to speak his son's name again still fills some part of his heart long left empty. “Last night was...” Revelatory. A perfect gift.

“Thank you," he finishes. "I don't know what I'd do without you.”

(two typos ughhhhhhhhhhhh)

The second goal was making that extremely unsubtle parallel between Bruce's manipulations of Jason and of Tim with I don't know what I'd do without you. There have definitely been some parallels already, but I really liked making it super blatant. (Hey remember three seconds ago when I said I tend to over-explain? Whoops. Hopefully this one was merited and enjoyable.) It's a comment on how awful Bruce is, but also a little bit how lazy he's gotten—he doesn't even need to come up with anything else, because he just uses the exact same line on both.

...the embarrassing addition here is that the first version I posted left it unclear who said that last line, which I didn't realize until a commenter referred to it as Jason speaking. 😬  Tbh the idea of Jason already knowing exactly what Bruce was going to say was super cool and interesting and I straight up wondered if that be better and I should canon-ize it—but ultimately it just doesn't work with where I'm pushing the characters. Unfortunately for Jason, as aware as he is of Bruce's manipulative tendencies in general, he completely fails—or perhaps subconsciously refuses—to notice Bruce is using them on him too.

Subtler parallel: Jason's initial confusion at Tim being gone, having completely forgotten about the concept of school, lightly mirrors Tim in the previous fic thinking about how strange and distant “real life” felt. (Though Jason has the excuse of, you know, not having school and a “normal” life since he died)

That sort of calls back to one of my favorite parallels (though probably not as noticeable since it's between fics)—Jason noting in surrogate that everybody brushing their teeth together is the weirdest thing he's done, and then Tim noting in prevaricator that seeing Jason eat breakfast like a normal person is the weirdest thing he's seen. They're both SO USED to this ridiculously fucked up situation that mundane and calm events are what register as wrong.

And jumping back for one last thing:

He's had a month to adjust to it, but the mere ability to speak his son's name again still fills some part of his heart long left empty.

I wanted to remind everyone that Jason's return was very recent (because I know typical batfic picks up awhile after it) but more importantly, I wanted to make it clear that Bruce really does...care about Jason.

It's a shitty, manipulative, controlling kind of care, but he loves his son. I've read various sorta similar fics where it turns out Bruce never liked Jason (or even arranged his death!!!) and I wanted to take very much the opposite path here. imo it's more twisted and more compelling the less black and white things are. Bruce isn't a heartless monster who only wants to abuse his kids and doesn't care for them; Bruce is a horrible person who abuses his kids but still fully believes he loves them in his own way, and would absolutely protect them from any danger (except, yknow, the danger Bruce poses himself).

This commentary is way longer than the actual passage, but hopefully y'all liked reading it as much as I liked rambling. Thanks for the ask, anon!!!

[fanforthefics]

writer and editor au for sidgeno? :)

“Page proofs for Crosby,” Phil grunts, dropping a stack of papers onto Geno’s desk with a loud thump. Geno jerks up–he hadn’t heard him come in. “And tell him he really only gets minor copyedits this time, I don’t care if he wants to change an entire section, if he wants that he’s paying for it.” 

“I tell him,” Geno assures Phil, picking up the pages. Then he grins. “But you know, last time he change section, it win him–” 

“I know what it won him,” Phil retorts. “I don’t care. Copyedits only.” 

“Some day i give him your email, let you two fight it out.” 

“Like you’d ever give up your special Crosby access,” Phil rolls his eyes. “You barely give Zach his email.” 

“He doesn’t give me his email,” Zach pipes in, from his cubicle outside Geno’s office. “I get Sid’s assistant’s email. I don’t actually talk to Sid, really. Like, ever.” 

“You, I fire,” Geno tells Zach, who grins at him with the air of someone who knows that yes, there might be infinite amounts of young Lit majors willing to take a seat as an editorial assistant at Big Five publishing house, but none of them would know just how to keep Geno’s editing schedule. “You–” He really doesn’t have any threats for Phil; if you wanted to be quite strict about it, the Managing Editor for the imprint probably outranked him. The whole imprint would definitely fail if Phil decided not to come to work one day, just drowning in a sea of misplaced commas. 

“Neither of you understand,” Geno tells them. “I’m save you. Not have to deal with Sid and his talk and neuroses.” 

“Yeah, Crosby sounds awful to deal with.” Phil snorts. “I have met him, you know.” 

“He always sends me a box of chocolates at Christmas,” Zach pipes in. “Even apart from the one he sends Geno.” 

“You not know,” Geno tells them both, glowering. They didn’t have to sit on the phone with Sid for hours, going page by page through his latest novel, discussing every fucking comma. Sure, it was that level of attention to detail that made Sid what he was in the literary world, and maybe the best parts of Geno’s days were when Sid called and they spend an hour discussing character motivations, and the day the house decided Sid’s contract wasn’t worth the money and he went to a different house was the day Geno walked, but still. He’d like to see them do it. 

“Call me from the Booker Prize dinner,” Phil snorts, and walks out of Geno’s office, shaking his head. 

He pauses in the doorway though, looks back. “I’d take a look at the dedication, though.”

“You think I not look?” Geno demands. He knows this book forward and back. He knows that, fuck everyone who thought Sid was played out, he couldn’t put out another winner, this book was maybe Sid’s best, even better than the first one Geno had gotten, inherited from Mario when he retired. Mario had passed that one on with a grin. You get Crosby, he’d said, and grinned again. I think you’ll enjoy it. 

Sometimes, Geno wonders if he knew. Geno flips past the cover page, makes a note on a typo in the front matter reviews, then he looks at the dedication. Sid usually dedicates his books to boring people, because he is a boring, boring man for all the magic of his words–his mom, his dad, his sister. His last one had been to the entire city of Pittsburgh. 

This one, though. For Geno, it says. Who makes me better, every day, and without whom none of this would be possible. 

“Hey, I’ll email the pdfs and mail the pages to Jake, then you have that meeting with Sully to go over numbers for–are you okay?” Zach asks, pausing halfway through the door. 

“Fine.” Geno doesn’t wipe tears from his eyes or anything. “Yes, email, send. But I’m late for meeting.” 

“Everyone’s going to be shocked,” Zach informs him. Geno narrows his eyes. 

“Fired,” he warns, and Zach laughs. 

“Want me to close the door so you can call Sid?” he asks. Geno considers pretending otherwise, but–

“Yes please,” he says. Zach barely laughs as he closes the door, even though Geno knows he’s about to go message all the other assistants about this. 

Geno types in the number on his phone mostly from memory. It rings, and it rings, and again, and then–

“Sidney Crosby’s phone,” comes a voice that is definitely not Sid’s. 

“Hi Jake,” Geno tells Sid’s assistant–one of them, he thinks Sid picked up a new guy recently too. He can’t actually tell their voices apart yet. “Sid around?” 

“Hey, Geno.” There’s a shuffling. “He’s just working on an interview, he didn’t want to be disturbed. Do you need something I can help with?” 

“No.” Jake is invaluable to both Sid and Geno, and Geno knows that, but–he can’t help with this. But Geno’s not going to disturb Sid when he’s busy. “Just tell him I call. Zach send you proofs soon–” 

“Oh,” Jake suddenly sounds very smug. “Oh, no, he’s going to want to talk to you, one sec.” 

He can hear someone getting up, then moving around–Geno can picture it, how Jake was probably camped out on Sid’s couch, because Sid keeps on threatening to give Jake his own office and Jake keeps on protesting he doesn’t need it even though at this point he’s running a business off of Sid’s coffee table. Then there’s a knock on a door, and Geno knows that door, knows Sid’s office from meetings and late nights and a few times when he’s had to barge in and tell Sid that he could wait a few days for the next manuscript sleep was more important. Then the door opens and, 

“Sid, it’s–yeah, I know, but it’s Geno. He’s got the page proofs–yeah, I thought so,” Jake says, sounding the sort of smug that Geno expects is going to result in an email to Zach. “Okay, here’s Sid.” 

“Thanks,” Geno tells him, then there’s a scratch and, 

“Geno?” Sid says, and Geno can’t help his smile. A decade later, and it’s still Sid, still the same voice that answered him the first time he called with edits. “Hey, sorry, I was writing something up for that tour Jen set up.” 

“Yes, I know, she nagging me to make you finish.” 

“She’ll get her answers on time,” Sid informs him, a little snippy like he tends to get when someone claims he isn’t professional. Then Geno can hear his breath. “You saw the proofs?” 

“Yes.” Zach already took them, but Geno doesn’t need the pages in front of him to see it. “See dedication. Want to say thank you, could have gone in acknowledgments–” 

“It’s true,” Sid says, firmly. Like he always says whenever someone looks in surprise at Geno, who gently suggests that maybe Sid should get an editor who speaks better English, who has more experience, who’s different. Sid has stared down each and every one of them, and firm but polite, told them that he won’t work with anyone else. Every time he says it, it makes Geno want to hug him. This time, he’s too far away. “You do. With the books and in general. I know I get the credit, but each of my books are both of ours, and this is the least I can do to give you some credit.” 

Sid does plenty. Sid is–Geno complains but Sid is the foundation of Geno’s career, sometimes it feels like the foundation of his life. Sid gives Geno credit at every interview he’s asked, and sometimes when he isn’t. Geno still remembers at some prize dinner a few years ago, when Sid had gotten a little tipsy and had ended up, red-faced and giggling a little, telling Geno how great he was over and over as Geno laughed. 

“I know, I’m genius, you just pretty face,” Geno retorts, because they don’t say that stuff. 

Sid laughs. Geno’s not sure he understands, really–that even now, ten years later, Geno’s a little in awe; that Sid’s stories can still move Geno to tears; that Sid’s won almost every award an author can get and Geno still thinks he’s not appreciated enough. 

“For sure, for sure,” Sid agrees. “Are you okay with it? I can still cut it–” 

“You just try,” Geno growls, maybe too fast. Sid chuckles again. Geno is a grown man and doesn’t blush, but he does take a second. “No, Phil kill you if you try change that much.” 

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that,” Sid says, and Geno groans. 

“Sid.” 

“No, but I really think we can still tighten up Stanley’s intro, it’s a little sloppy–”

“Phil come to your house and kill you,” Geno warns, but he’s pulling the manuscript up on his computer. “Okay, what you think?” 

Half an hour later, Geno is very late for his meeting and Phil is definitely going to kill one or both of them for the changes they want, but they’re happy with where it is. 

“We good?” Geno asks. “I tell Zach, he–”

“Don’t bother him, Jared can do it. He needs something to do. I don’t know why I needed another assistant–” 

“Because Jake too busy, and you have better things to do with time,” Geno informs him. “This way Jake can focus on charity stuff, and Jared help with things like page proofs.” 

“Yeah, you’re right, I know.” Sid huffs out a breath. “I’ll send him the changes to input. Two weeks for the proofs?” 

“Sooner better, with these changes,” Geno agrees. He glances at his calendar. “Then I’m come down, for launch. Zach send you my travel, hotel–”

“You’re staying with me.” 

“Sid, I don’t–” 

“Don’t be ridiculous, I have the space, you’re staying. Sam misses you,” Sid adds, because he knows how to play dirty. Geno will never pass up time to play with Sid’s dog. 

“Fine, I stay with you. But not work, not all the time.” 

He can hear Sid’s smile. “That’ll be good. We haven’t hung out in a while.” 

“Your fault, write too many bestsellers, keep me too busy.” But Sid’s right. It will be good, to just hang around and watch a game and chat late into the night. To have Sid, spread out on the other end of his couch in shorts and bare feet, maybe even shirtless for the summer, and– “But yes, we remember we friends.” 

Geno only notices Sid’s pause because he’s spent years paying attention to him. “Yes, friends,” Sid agrees. “I’ll get you the pages ASAP, and Jen the interview.” 

“Good, yes.” Geno closes his eyes. “And Sid–thank you. Means a lot, you think this about me.” 

Sid laughs. “You know how I feel about you, G,” he says, then, “Okay, I need to get to this interview.” 

“Bye,” Geno agrees, on instinct, and then Sid hangs up. 

Geno looks at his desk, piled with papers, then out his office window to the New York streets below. Sid’s an author, the best there is; he doesn’t choose words lightly. And Geno’s english might not be 100%, but–he knows what that phrasing means. What it suggests. 

Geno grins, and gets up. Zach’s bent over his computer, which means he’s either working hard or emailing memes with Jusso, the new publicity assistant. Geno knocks on the table. “For when I go down to Pittsburgh, see if I can get there day early,” he asks, as Zach jerks to look at him. “Also, find good restaurant. Need to take Sid out.” 

“Yeah, sure,” Zach agrees, jotting a note down on a post-it. Then he looks up, grinning. “You know, I don’t think you’re allowed to expense a date disguised as an author dinner.” 

Geno scoffs, but–well, between Zach and Jake it’s not like he has secrets. “Fired,” Geno warns again, and heads to his meeting whistling.