#(I'm sorry to the Grant Emerson tag if you feel this doesn't belong there; I'd honestly feel weird NOT tagging him after ranting like this.

[msfcatlover]

*sigh* Y'know what? I love how my Reverse!Robins verse has canon-esque time weirdness. No, not time travel weirdness, I mean that weird time-dilation thing comics do where when you do the math on ages/events, it stops making sense. It lets me imagine the timeline on which they would've actually been published as comics in order to explain that time weirdness, and that's really fun to think about.

Like, Steph's daughter is the obvious example. Steph has Luna and chooses to keep her. The baby grows up in roughly real time, probably about 2-4yrs of baby into toddler-dom. Steph dies. Everyone says Steph died at 16. Steph's gravestone says she died at 16. Steph herself will tell you she died at 16. But she definitely did not have her baby at 14, no, the way everyone talks about it, Steph had to be 15-16 when she had Luna... but that was definitely a toddler her mother took from the manor.

Why? Fuck it. Comics. Steph had her baby when she was 15, died a few months later, and the baby was 2.

Or, like, Duke's time as solo head of the Titans, and how long it took for him to fade himself out to let Jon & Damian take over. Probably took place over the course of several years, with Duke gradually becoming less involved with the Titans on each subsequent event/mission, but it's cool! Because about 1yr into that story, Duke got his solo series as the Signal! You can still get your Duke Thomas content, but you have to pay separately now. How long did this take in-universe? "A couple months." That's what everyone says whenever they reference that time. "A couple months." Maybe occasionally someone will get more specific. "Two months," they say in one issue. "Three months," they say in another. "Half a year," one comic says, but everyone agrees to ignore that one because it's way too long of a time frame.

Steph joins the Titans after Damian takes over. Grant Emerson leaving the Titans is what convinces Duke to fully give up on managing both the team, his civilian life, and being Gotham's only daytime hero, because he can't believe he let Grant's mental health slip through the cracks like that. Logically, this means Grant & Steph couldn't possibly have known eachother for more than a few weeks.

Fuck you. They're great friends. They were super close. Got along like a house on fire. Grant was included in the scenes of Steph's funeral, in the background at least, because they were important to eachother. Titans fans from that time period get pissy if you forget about their friendship the same way YJ98 fans get pissy about people forgetting Tim's friendships with their favorite YJ characters. Grant is the first non-Gotham hero (well, retired hero) who reaches out to Steph after her return and it's super fucking emotional.

How long was Tim Shadow? Probably 3-5yrs, real world time. How long on the timeline, once you do the math? 3 months, max. Absolutely no explanation for how he did all that training, finished all those cases, had a whole arc of proving his place, worming his way into his siblings' hearts, learning how to be an older sibling, and stepping up as a major mentor figure for Jason in 3 months.

Tim had at least 3yrs worth of bonding time with the family, and no, I will not make it make sense. I've given up. I'm embracing the messiness. This way is more fun, actually. It is legit fun to explain away my own timeline holes with real world comics publishing practices.