Your personal Tumblr journey starts here
Hear me out. Tim Drake has always loved photography, that's wildly accepted and known. But what if he has powers too?
What if whatever Tim edits into his pictures becomes the truth?
The first time it happened, Tim was just starting his photography hobby. His parents bought him a camera and he was so exited! He took a picture of his mom's Rosebush, a single rose in the entire bush, half Withered.
Tim found the picture beautiful, and he started messing with photoshop, editing the withered flower back to the bright red it used to be. He decided it looked lonely and sad, the bush dry and the rose edited to be lively but alone in the middle. So he edited the dry areas of the bush back to the lively green and more roses in it. The picture looked very different from the original, but it was beautiful. Satisfied, he saved the end result.
That afternoon, when he walked through the garden, the very same dry rosebush he photographed looked just like his edited picture: lively, with rich colors and plenty of roses.
It made no sense, but he ignored it.
He kept taking pictures and editing them, though the changes were small, like the lighting and all that. Sometimes he made small changes, and he definitely noticed them and thought it was weird, but didn't quite connect the dots. He was kind of in denial. He couldn't be a meta or anything! Right?
And then his parents left for a few months and he was lonely, but he didn't want to admit it. And at school everyone was talking about their pets, and he messed up and lied. "I just adopted a Border Collie puppy!" he lied, thinking that would be it, people would forget, he would get out of the awkward situation (why did everyone have pets?) and nothing would happen. Well turns out, everyone wanted to see his puppy.
So Tim came home and prepared his camera, in his trusted tripod to look like it had been taken by someone else, and took pictures of himself, a whole photoshoot, with his arms stretched like carrying a dog, and then sitting like he was playing with it.
He searched for a perfect Border Collie puppy, one who had a whole photoshoot just for that one, so he could be sure the pictures were coherent and no one would question them. He carefully edited them and memorized every feature of his supposed dog in case anyone asked, to keep his story straight. Once satisfied, he sent them to those who asked for pictures, and received plenty of "cute dog!" compliments. It had taken him all day, so he went to bed almost immediately after, already past midnight.
He woke up to the very same blue eyed fluffy Border Collier puppy he edited into his pictures, licking his face, the same blue harness and leash hung on his door, and even the bed and bowls he put in the background were on the corner of his room now.
He freaked out, of course, but the small pup didn't seem all that worried. And apparently he now had a puppy? Well, he's always wanted one. He named her Frankie, because her multiple colors and patterns clashed like Frankenstein's monster, like she had been made for from mismatched parts.
He loved Frankie. She was so smart! And Frankie was quite loyal and enamored by him, too. He was her whole world, and she was his heart, his companion and confidant, his best friend and ally in his too-big house.
He did decide to experiment though. He needed more research.
When a boy at school picked on him, he edited his picture bald, and that same day his father shaved his hair. He tried again with another boy who picked on Jason (Jason doesn't know Tim exists yet, but Tim keeps an eye out for him), editing his hair bright barbie pink, and this time he added a date to the corner, writing the date of a week ago, two days before the pictures for his football team were taken.
When Tim saw the football team's pictures displayed at school, the boy had pink hair in them, that he didn't yesterday. He asked around, if the pictures looked different to anyone else.
"yeah, I don't know what persuaded him to dye his hair pink before picture day and the tournament."
"I asked him two days ago, he said he lost a bet."
Two days ago. Tim's mind was reeling. He asked the boy himself when he dyed his hair, and he replied with the date Tim edited on the corner of the picture.
Did Tim just... Edit reality?
He later uses this power to his advantage on patrol, and before that while watching the Bats.
Jason is surrounded? He takes a picture and edits a few goons out of it quickly. They aren't there when he looks up.
Shit Joker escaped? He doesn't have the energy to deal with it right now. He edits tonight's date on a picture of Joker sitting peacefully in his cell and a few more guards for good measure.
His family doesn't understand why he takes a small discreet camera on patrol in his utility belt