Two Dead Birds
| Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Two Dead Birds |
| Author(s): | InsaneTrollLogic |
| Date(s): | 16 December 2017 - 26 February 2018 |
| Length: | 29 030 words, 15 chapters |
| Genre: | Thriller, Time travel, Plotty |
| Fandom: | Batman |
| External Links: | Archive of Our Own via Wayback Machine |
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Two Dead Birds is a novella-length Batman fan fiction by InsaneTrollLogic. The story follows Jason Todd, the antihero known as Red Hood, who finds himself transported to the past, giving him the opportunity to alter the events of Batman: Under the Hood.
Overview
Blurb
There's some lunatic in a red helmet running through Jason's territory. He wants to think it's a copy cat.
He's wrong.
Summary
Jason Todd, known as the antihero Red Hood and black sheep of the Batfamily, finds himself physically transported to the past, shortly before his past self is due to debut as Red Hood in Gotham. Though the plot and Jason himself are unconcerned with how and why he traveled back in time, Jason must determine if and how he could impact his timeline—whether he's experiencing a stable time loop, forging an alternate future branching off his original timeline, or wiping his present self from existence. In the course of his adventure, he allies himself with, conceals himself from, and/or opposes various characters—notably Tim Drake, Dick Grayson, the Joker, and Jason's own past self.
The main relationships are Jason Todd & Tim Drake and Dick Grayson & Jason Todd.
Development, narrative choices and inspiration
Author's notes and trivia
Chapter Six
The poem referenced is "One Fine Day". It’s folk poetry that doesn’t have a credited author. There are a whole bunch of versions bouncing around, but the one I’d learned as a kid goes:
One fine day in the middle of the night Two dead boys got up to fight. Back-to-back they faced each other, Drew their swords and shot each other.
A deaf policeman heard the noise, He came and killed those two dead boys. (If you don't believe this lie is true, Ask the blind man – he saw it too!)
Final note:
Guys, thank you. All of you. The support for this story has been astounding. I’ve been focusing on original stuff for the past few years and while that’s great, it always feels a little like writing into a vacuum (albeit one that is occasionally broken by a form letter rejection). I’d honestly forgotten what it was like to have this kind of a response to a story. So everyone to who left kudos, bookmarked, subscribed, or left comments (and especially those of you who left comments every update): Holy crap. I love you guys. You have no idea how much it brightened my day. Thank you.
Reviews and Comments
[flashhwing on Chapter 15, 26 Feb 2018]
Honestly, I don’t know how I would’ve dealt if Jason had blinked out of existence entirely at the end here. He went through so much — his motivations, his development, the catharsis or finally killing the Joker, getting the chance to give himself a second chance ... going through all that, and then getting wiped out for it? It would’ve been so unfair.
As it is, this is such a good ending. Though I can’t say I’m not curious about what comes next — how do Jason and Jay exist in the same time? How does Jay fit into the hero’s world now?
[InsaneTrollLogic, 26 Feb 2018]
This was a fun way to character study Jason. Because in lot of ways he's both the hero and the antagonist of this story. I've always got the feeling that he's wished he could go back for a redo, but since it doesn't seem possible a lot of times he doubles down on his choices instead.
(I left the end open intentionally, because my knee jerk reaction to how do Jason and Jay exist at the same time? is they don't. Or if they do, it goes very, very poorly until they manage to assimilate.)
[OrangeKing89 on Chapter 15, 12 Sep 2018]
If you ever continue this, I think it would be a really funny story to have Jason making sarcastic comments in Blue Jay's head.
[InsaneTrollLogic, 16 Sep 2018]
Jason: Shoot him.
Jay: Wrong costume.
Jason: He's gonna get away unless you at least kneecap him.
Jay: I DON'T HAVE MY GUNS ON ME, THIS ISN'T HELPFUL(Jk. This story is for real done. I like where it ended)
[kiragecko on Chapter 15, 19 Aug 2019]
OOH.
Oh, he does get another chance.
Excuse me while I try to cry silently, so the 6 year old whose 3 feet from me doesn't get concerned.Looks like I managed to keep it to a lot of silent facial contortions. Only two actual tears. Good, the kids have had enough stress with the crying from pain. Don't need to see more crying. (I'm dealing with some really nasty heartburn.)
Anyways, this is beautiful. I don't have words. Hopefully the descriptions of tears is enough?
All he had to give any of them was hope. They just needed a sign that he was still there.
WONDERFUL.
[InsaneTrollLogic on Chapter 15, 19 Aug 2019]
Okay, so watching you roller-coaster emotion through reading this fic was seriously the highlight of my day. I'm so glad you enjoyed it!
[StorytellerD2020 on Chapter 15, 19 Jan 2020]
Noooo!!!! Don’t dare leave me on this note after reading this well written and almost too enjoyable story!
[InsaneTrollLogic, 2 Feb 2020]
Man I've hesitated for like a week on replying to this one because, well, I'm a little defensive about this ending. For this version of Jason, it's always felt absolutely right to me. The amount of bad blood between him and his family may have started with this incident, but this incident is by no means all of it. To the point where Jason really can't see how he might make it back. So he gets to see it. And to me, that's absolutely closure, no matter if he flickers out of existence or not.
I'm glad you enjoyed the story on the whole!
[StorytellerD2020, 3 Feb 2020]
Wow, a week? Sorry to make you doubt. Seriously, I had nothing against it, I liked the ending. The story as a whole was well written and I enjoyed all the way through. My comment was just we wining about a good story ending and WANTING MORE.
I read on the phone and have the entire work on so I just scroll down... I didn’t released that it was done😅 sorry, again, don’t ever let people doubt your own writing abilities! Because I seriously thought it was that good.
[SeleneMoon on Chapter 15]
Curious what happens next but I also think this was the right place to end it. Excellent work. I really liked the way you weaved the “How do I change things? Really change things?” narrative through out. And that the answer was one of the reasons he decided to change things in the first place. His brothers. That it wasn’t his conscious change but he still affected the relationships enough to alter his path. Thanks for the read. This would have been an awesome comic book mini series. You hit all the right beats and ACTUALLY sticked the landing.
[InsaneTrollLogic]
Oh man, I remember working on the ending for ages. I figure Jason in the past would be automatically like, fuck the joker but I also equally sure that it wouldn't change anything about the person he let himself become to get there. Which is why the Joker dies in act II in this story and act III is very much about all the ways Dick, Tim matter more than the Joker did. I'm definitely more partial to a story about redemption than revenge.
[Ghostly_Prince on Chapter 15, 18 Jan 2021]
WOW this fic is amazing. I love how Jason realizes that it WASNT all due to the joker, he wasn’t the common denominator that basically cursed Jason to fail, it was his lack of family !! I love that Tim and Dick were so easily swayed by older Jason, they trusted him so quickly and even when Jason tried to explain that he was STILL Red Hood, he was STILL a bad guy, neither of them really believed him lol. They have faith in their brother and Jason’s never had that, or at least hadn’t had it in a loooong time. And I love that. He’s finally getting the trust and family he craves and honestly deserves!!! And he even felt BAD about it!! He through the was taking this reconciliation away from the current Jason Todd and wow that just shows how much he really has changed!! He WANTS this past Jason to get better, to rejoin his family, even if it means he’ll stop existing!
And wow that ending was confusing lmao. I love how things changed but also didn’t. It’s so interesting to see that well yeah they killed the Joker, but then they KEPT killing the Joker and so clearly that wasn’t the thing that needed to be changed! And also BLUE JAY!!!! That’s amazing and I love it. I love that by the ending you can just FEEL the self love and acceptance Jason has gone through. I love how it all feels wrapped up. How they’re both about to get thrown into something new but they are both willing and ready for it, because this future is what they’ve both been wanting! I love it all so much !!!
[InsaneTrollLogic, 26 Jan 2021]
I think Jason as a character is someone that is very easy to paint as an inevitable product of circumstance. Part of what I wanted to do in this story was have Jason look at his rage spiral from the outside. Because even in canon, I think there probably was help there if he'd looked for it and pushing himself to the place where he had the chance was big. In a pretty real sense, Jason is both the protagonist and antagonist in this story. There's part of me who wishes I'd delved into how hard Jason had to work to get to the place where his is in the epilogue, but eh from the thematic story POV, he's kind of functioning as the reward for all the work time travelling Jason put into his redemption arc.
[Batfan on Chapter 15]
"And that's the difference isn't it?"
God, My heart broke. The differnce. all this time worrying will he make a difference; can he change everything fast enough? And in a way it didn't matter. He was the difference. Just by being there, being him, flaws and all. And having people look; see he was there. Always there. That was the difference, just an ounce of hope, the idea that people can be good; he can be good. Having put that idea there, not knowing it, that was all that really mattered wasn't it. All he ever need was someone, people he knew and people that knew him, to think that maybe just maybe he isn't all bad. Someone to believe it for him until he can believe it himself.