It starts out so innocent and simple. Tim is spending a relaxing day with his friends, when Kon starts complaining about Tim sneaking up on him again. âNot a meta my ass! I swear, you Bats have this super creepy ability to make NO SOUND. I have super-hearing. I can hear a damn pin drop a mile away. Yet once again, I nearly shit myself this morning when I saw you in the kitchen!â
Tim just rolls his eyes. âThe reason you donât hear me Kon is because youâre distracted. I just learned how to take advantage of that.â Â
But Kon crosses his arms and vehemently shakes his head. âTim, I hear a lot of shit. Stuff, I really, really donât want to hear. You though? No footsteps, no breathing and your heartbeat? I gotta actually listen for that! I swear itâs like living with a ghost!â
The gang laugh it off after awhile but the conversation stays with Tim. While Kon tended to exaggerate, what he said was kinda true. Tim is 100% sure heâs not a meta and he doesnât feel any different then usual, but he can keep an eye out on the rest of the bat-family, right?
What he sees changes everything. Dick is too fast, too flexible, his body twisting in ways no human should. Jason accuracy is beyond that of a machine, and his ability to recover from injuries is too fast. Cassandraâs eyesight is incredible, Barbraâs memory is vast, and Alfred isnât aging. Damian and Stephanie seem to be the least affected but there are signs that is changing.
Whatever is changing them, itâs influencing Bruce the most, and Tim is determined to figure out what the hell is going. But some things shouldnât be known, and Tim finds himself delving into the world of the Eldritch, and that has consequences.
IN short, Tim finds out the bat-family are becoming less human because an ancient eldritch being is
obsessed
with them, and Tim finding this out through his poking around accidently progresses the change happening to him even faster.
So now Timâs a half eldritch being who has to make sure the worldâs greatest detective doesnât find this out, because the same thing that happened to Tim could happen to Bruce.
Small tiddbits =Fear gas reveals Timâs true form. Timâs form is the embodiment of hope for Gotham. Looks like a manta-ray cause, I guess, manta rays are pretty smart? Can eat magic and fear.
people misunderstand what âgifted kidâ actually means but itâs ok itâs fine itâs cool itâs good
itâs not about actually being gifted, itâs about an initial higher scoring on standardized testing that means little to nothing or being good at learning in the way elementary and middle school wants you to, so you get marked as âadvancedâ. in reality, maybe you had faster development in certain areas, but the issue with being a gifted kid isnât that âeveryone told me I was so cool and special for reading and then I actually wasnât :(â itâs âI wasnât properly taught to handle things not coming easily to me, but the adults around me were counting on me not being a âdifficultâ child in school.â
people who use it as some weird bragging method or interpret it that way are ignoring the way a lot of school systems force certain roles on students to simplify the learning process. If your kid doesnât need to take notes to understand a science concept bc they get it naturally, well thatâs good, but now youâre not teaching them how to take notes and theyâre not learning that important soft skill. but because âgiftedâ kids are easy and donât show that theyâre falling behind in learning in other categories that are harder to quantify, they eventually fall behind after that catches up to them. Itâs about the failures of a one size fits all school system trying to compensate in the worst way possible.
And also the thing where âgiftedâ kids are super likely to also be neuroatypical, which they donât get screened for because they appear to be doing well in school. Or âYou canât be ADHD/autistic/etc, because youâre doing so well in school!â. Or being shamed for developing mental health issues/generally not being able to keep up with school work later, because you USED TO BE able to do it just fine.
Or the assumption that just because you can read well or you like math class, youâre somehow more EMOTIONALLY mature than your little kid brain is actually capable of being.
Or gifted kids whose parents and teachers put immense pressure on them to Do Great Things and Save The World and youâre like. âIâm 10 and I have no idea how to do that, but everyone is saying thatâs my job?â.
This is the best âgifted kidâ post out there. I never took notes until college because I didnât have to, snd when it got challenging I had to literally teach myself note taking at age 18. It also fucks with your perception of asking for help – youâre advanced, youâre competent, you should be able to understand every topic easily. Asking for help/going to office hours/asking for a tutor feels like failing when you were praised in your early years for not needing to do that.
