"Birds" entry - Caged

[amara_anon]

Title: Caged
Universe: General
Genres: Action/Drama
Rating: PG
Characters: Scarecrow, OC
Word Count: 500
Summary: An electrical outage brings a woman's fears to life...

Comments

[paper_scratch]

I'm not sure that I "get" the last line, but this was a good fic! I liked the pacing, and my favourite part was:

“The world doesn’t seem so scary, knowing you’re in it.”

Love how he doesn't even address what she said, so typical of him, lol. ;)

[harlequinofh8]

It took me a moment to get the last line -- the main character is an agoraphobic (afraid to leave her house, afraid of the outside world) so this step outside is a huge step for her. An interesting idea for a story.

[amara_anon]

That's it exactly! Thank you!

Do you think I should get rid of the last line, or change it to make it clearer, or should I leave it as it is?

[paper_scratch]

Ah, okay! Thank you! I guess I need to read up on my phobias. ;)

[alocin42]

Please allow me a moment to seethe with jealously at your ability to subtley intermingle several different layers of the theme and a complete and interesting plot in just 500-bloody-words. *quiet sobbing*

Okay, I think I've got a hold of myself now. The caged bird afraid to fly free, the flock-mentality fear, even the character's name! That's just ridiculously well planned to fit in the word limit, with all the plot working neatly through it.

I don't know if you changed the last line; it's still "Batman smiled, held out his hand, and helped her take the first step." right now, but I did get that pretty much straight away. Maybe because the agoraphobic-theme reminded me of a recent episode of House. I think it's a toss-up for me whether I would keep that or leave it at "can I come with you"; that alone would have said to me she was taking the first step both out and in addressing her fears.

[amara_anon]

What a nice comment! I think there is always at least a tiny bit of trepidation when posting a story because you don't know how people are going to react to it--you don't know if what you wrote works. And this particular drabble had me nervous; I'm not sure I've ever written something quite like it before. So thank you for your kind comments! I'm glad if this drabble worked for you

[alocin42]

This very much did work for me. And I won't spoil the ending of the House episode for you in the hope you can catch up with it some time!

[amara_anon]

Thanks! Yeah, I gotta catch up with House. I've missed a couple of episodes this season.

[minakiwi]

Verry nice.

Word limit often makes it difficult to bring across what you envision, but you've done excellently here and your dialog is wonderful.

[amara_anon]

Thank you, Mina, I'm glad you think so!

[quiet__tiger]

I thought the last line was fine, but I also got it with just the "Can I come with you" thing. Even getting out of the house for an agoraphobic is a major ordeal, so actually going anywhere, even with Batman--I hope she makes it.

This was a good story, using the different layers. And Crane--I don't see him too much except in weird pairings I have no interest in reading. I wish they hadn't left his character dangling (quite literally off a horse) in Batman Begins. It's funny, I pictured Nolanverse Crane with Comics Batman.

There was a line, though, that bothered me a little:

Crane's rants could be heard until Batman shoved his head into the car and slammed the door.

The *rest* of him is in the car, too, right? Then I thought Batman slammed the door on his head gangster style. Or slammed him head-first into the door.

Great little fic!

[amara_anon]

lol, yeah the rest of the him is in the car too. XD I'll have to fix that line when I post this drabble at my journal. Oh, the funny things that happen when you're running out of words.

It's funny you should mention that you pictured Nolanverse Crane with Comics Batman, because I had a similar feeling when I was writing it. This Crane was kind of an amalgamation of several versions of Crane for me, TNBA (scariest costume, imo), Nolanverse, and DCU. I neglected to mention Crane being ugly (or pretty, for that matter) when Sylvia took off his mask so that people could picture any version of Crane they wanted. But yeah, the Batman I pictured when writing was always Comics Batman too.

Crane is such a fun character in the Nolanverse. I never really got or appreciated his character until Batman Begins.

It's funny how many Batman characters can be connected to "birds"--Scarecrow, the Robins, the Birds of Prey, Penguin, Magpie... there's probably more I'm not thinking of, lol.

Anyway, thanks very much for your kind comment!