#BRING ROBIN STEPHANIE BACK DC LISTEN TO ME

[vicsshithole]

I’m brain rotting cass and stephanie and after incessantly drawing them in their vigilante gear, I needed some fluff for my brain.

They’re the girlfriendest of girlfriends, I’m so normal about them.

[ectonurites]

hey! how knowledgeable are you on stephanie brown? because i got in a bit of an argument with a dc fan on reddit who claims she's all these awful things, but im still relatively new to steph and i want to see what was true and what wasn't. link to screenie right here: https://ibb.co/vh6CYCJ

these may be matters of opinion, but even then, i'd like to know your take. i haven't read her firsthand often enough and i trust your judgement over this random redditor who seems to have some sort of blonde-woman related trauma left untapped.

I'm not necessarily the most knowledgable on her in the world, but I do know a decent amount because she's one of my absolute faves and I love her

But ohhhh boy that screenshot is a lot.

I will say that several of the things this person brings up are based in canon but are taken in the worst faith and framed in the way that makes her look as bad as possible, if that makes sense? It’s ripping things away from any context, because there's a very clear bias against her here.

I'll go through it point by point under the cut

First of all though before digging into this, I want to make it clear she was a 15 year old for the majority of the things this person is talking about. Like just pause for a second and remember she’s a 15 year old victim of abuse. That is something that I think factors into a lot of her behavior! Anyways, I kinda while doing this got into a ranty 'talking at you' format in response to the person who wrote all that, so don't take any of this as me yelling at you who asked the question/you anyone reading this.

"She always acted entitled" - Saying Steph is entitled is absolutely ridiculous to me. Stephanie grew up with a very unstable childhood due to her dad frequently being in prison and her mom dealing with a drug addiction, living in a lower class part of the city. Tim is entitled. I don’t mean that as like a bad thing about him, but he is based on his living situation, she is not. She has wanted life to be better for herself and her mom, and is determined about that, but she is not and does not act entitled.

(Secret Origins 80 Page Giant)

"and stubborn" - I will give you stubborn though, that one is true. She’s stubborn as hell! I don’t really see that as a bad thing though, pretty much every bat is stubborn?

"demanding that Batman and Robin accept her untrained ass" - Steph may have been untrained in fighting but she's shown to have exceptional gymnastics skills from the start, and at one point Bruce even says that with the right training she could be as good if not better than Tim (in Robin #88)! So like... her realizing she enjoys trying to be a hero after she tried it out to deal with her personal business, so she looks to the local experts… and is determined about it… how is that a bad thing? It’s also not like she walked up to them and said ‘im perfect as i am let me in’ what she wanted was a chance to be a hero. But she also wasn't even really looking for approval, either, not having Batman's blessing was never going to stop her. ("So excuse me if I don't jump when you bark, Batman." in Robin #16) Later when Bruce does bring her in to train (and she also gets to train with the BoP) she's excited! She’s stubborn about wanting to be in the hero business, but it’s not like she’s unwilling to work for it.

"advocating leaving criminals to die because they 'deserve it'" - She’s a 15 year old who grew up knowing firsthand how dangerous Gotham criminals can be because of her dad, of course off the bat when they’re in a dangerous situation where any of them could die (because that’s the context here, this is in Robin #35 where they’re trapped in some super dangerous snow) she thinks they shouldn’t go back for another criminal who just tried to kill them and should instead save themselves. But she also literally WITHIN THAT SAME ISSUE then says she realized she learned something after listening to Tim and trying to save the guy! In the same issue! Characters in a story aren’t supposed to be perfect from the start… they learn things along the way???

(Robin #35)

"trying to steal from the shops they just stopped from being burglarized" - She’s 15 and doesn’t have a ton of money. She was gonna take two sodas, and when Tim said not to do it she paid with very little fuss. They stopped people who were robbing the place at gunpoint for prescription drugs. If you can’t understand the difference in severity between those things like… I do not even know where to start. (this situation is in Robin #56 btw)

"forcing physical affection onto Tim despite his visible discomfort and repeated objections (not even stopping when he told her he had a girlfriend)" - This one I will give you because she did cross boundaries with all that! But I do also want to clarify that she didn't start coming onto him until after Tim kissed her first (in Robin #5) while not telling her he had a girlfriend. That doesn’t excuse her later actions but for the first issue that she’s coming onto him from her perspective he expressed interest and she was just returning it! She even specifically says 'Maybe I should pay you back for saving my life the same way you paid me' (in Robin #16) before kissing him. That first time she kissed him unprompted was under essentially the same circumstances he kissed her unprompted, and she literally did not know about Ariana until after the fact. From that point once she knew about Ari she definitely should have backed off and she didn’t, that’s a very fair thing to criticize about her as a character. But Tim lead her on first, and I feel a lot of people like to casually forget that when talking about this situation. The way this is phrased of ‘not even stopping when he told her-‘ implies she was repeatedly doing the bad behavior before he told her, which is not the case. She still did bad things here but don’t misrepresent the situation.

"And lashing out at Tim, her mother, and her classmates in violent fits of anger" - Every comic book character lashes out at other people for the sake of drama like, I dare you to come up with a well-known superhero character who hasn’t done shit like that to a partner/family/friends in a moment of high tension/stress?

"She treated the girls around her like they were stupid bitches" - frankly this ones a little too vague like, I'm not sure off the top of my head exactly what they're talking about? in that era right around her pregnancy and stuff I really don't recall her being mean with other girls? I could be forgetting something I guess but the closest I can think of is a bit after this period of time when she has the confrontation with Greta in Young Justice but that was Greta attacking her first, not the other way around.

"got insanely jealous if Tim so much as expressed concern about another girl" - Steph getting jealous and thinking Tim was cheating isn’t that crazy when STEPHANIE BASICALLY WAS THE OTHER GIRL DURING TIM’S LAST RELATIONSHIP? Tim has cheated a little bit before! Tim cheated on Ari with both Jubilee from Marvel (during a crossover thing where he even mentions Ari specifically so it’s not like this was out of continuity/a setting she wasn't an issue or something) and also with Steph. While most of the kissing between them was Steph coming onto Tim which I wouldn’t count as cheating on his end, he did still kiss her which I would count. Not to mention that the jealousy thing (I imagine they’re talking about the instance with Star, the girl who taught Tim to skateboard, this arc of stuff starts in Robin #80 and continues for a few issues) is happening during the time she’s dating him while she still doesn’t even know his real name. He literally has a whole other life she doesn’t know about, and is someone who has initiated romantic moments with other girls while in a relationship multiple times before! With that in mind I don’t think a 16 (she's def 16 by this point) year old girl being kinda paranoid about how he interacts with girls he might know in his civilian life is that unreasonable? The later big instance with jealousy is the Darla situation- where Steph sees Darla kiss him and gets mad about it (and doesn’t talk to him about it) and thats what prompts her to become Robin. The important thing to remember about Steph in this time frame is that DC decided she had to die and they wanted to make her Robin first to drum up more attention for that death. They were doing ooc things with her to set those pieces in motion, and that needs to be taken into account. I think her getting upset about seeing something like that isn’t even ooc, but her using it as motivation to become Robin and not even saying anything to him about it is. In the earlier instance where she’s upset/jealous about Star, she does communicate to him what’s going on at least a little bit on the rooftop after they’d saved her. She makes it clear the thing she was upset about is that she feels like she can’t trust him because she doesn’t really know him while he knows everything about her, and that’s why she thinks he’s cheating. Her reaction to the Darla thing is not in line with how earlier in canon Steph would have handled the same situation, because they wanted her to die and needed a way to explain her becoming Robin.

"and expressed that jealousy by accusing him of cheating and throwing things at him" - I just addressed the cheating stuff but the throwing things was fucking slapstick oh my god this is a comic book for kids/teens like. ah yes this is horrible abuse in this little funny montage of how Steph wants him to leave her alone because she’s mad at him and he refuses to give her space

(Robin #82)

I don’t think anyone at DC or even in fandom would/should try to argue she’s perfect, because she’s not! And I don’t want her to be because perfect characters are boring. Steph is flawed, Steph has been compared in canon to Robin-era Jason by Cass & Bruce

(Detective Comics #790)

And I think these highlight some of her very real flaws that are an interesting part of her character. These plus her stubbornness and determination are part of what makes her her.

And for fuck's sake the world was mean to her, and to act like it wasn’t is just blatantly ignoring a lot. A criminal father who made her life really difficult (‘when my dad was mad at me he’d lock me in the closet!’), that time she got kidnapped for two weeks and her mom had left her (a 15 year old) alone at home so long she didn't even find out it happened (in text Steph says Crystal was visiting friends, a lot of people interpret that as her mom possibly being in rehab for her addictions again), that whole thing about how one of her dad’s friends tried to sexually assault her as a child, also just how due to her dad's work sometimes criminals would be living in their house (Literally the fucking Riddler at one point!), the fact that we as an audience watched her get tortured for several days because a plan she tried to enact to prove herself backfired since Batman didn’t trust her with important information (something Selina even calls him out on in her internal narration), like… sorry but in what way is all that not the world being mean to her?

She was Robin, she dated Robin, she likes Eggplant (because purple would've looked stupid), and makes jokes. She’s also impulsive, headstrong and determined, and wants to prove to herself and others that she can be more than just the daughter of a shitty criminal, that she can actually be a force to do good in the world.

She’s a complex character, and nobody is required to like her, but to act like she doesn’t have a single redeeming trait is ridiculous. You could write a paragraph like that with the worst moments of basically any character and make them look like shit if that's what you were setting out to do.

[casualotaku]

My Rant On Tim Drake [Spoilers for Urban Legends #6]

We knew it was coming.  Of course it was coming. Anyone that understands queer coding AT ALL knew this was coming.  Just like we knew the “DC will never get my money again!” homophobes would crawl out of the woodwork claiming this is just Virtue Signaling and I just...need...to...VENT!! And I’ll start with one word...Superboy.   So many, many, MANY queer coded moments with Superboy.  The hugs, saying he loved him, trying to bring Connor (and only Connor) back from the dead.  Whereas Tim  literally dropped Stephanie, in the middle of a make out session, because he heard an alarm.  One of these things shows a lot more passion than the other and it shouldn’t take a clue-by-four between the eyes to see that. It drives me up the wall that these ‘fans’ are also willfully overlooking one crucial detail while whining about how Tim has always dated women.  That detail being;  BISEXUAL MEN STILL LIKE WOMEN!! That's the meaning of BI people.  Tim didn't "turn gay"   He's BI as in TWO, as in he likes the V as much as the D.  He could go right back to Stephanie after this story arc,  get married, have kids, and he'd still...be...bisexual. I understand that many comic book readers are cisgender, heterosexual, Caucasian males.  So they have trouble relating to the fact someone can think they're straight for YEARS before suddenly something clicks and they realize nope that's not right.  Or maybe it’s the fact that deep down they DO know that and it terrifies them to identify with a character that flipped that way because it might mean they could as well. (Sugar, if it was that easy you weren’t straight to begin with and that’s okay) if you've actually read the comic you'd know it blindsided Tim the same way it blindsided most readers.  And that's the way it REALLY is for so many people.  You suddenly look back at these moments in your past that seemed innocent and wonder  "How did I NOT know?"     So...if you're going to stop reading comics about Tim Drake because of this change you're not really a fan of Tim.  You were a fan of all the hot girls they threw at him.  Because unless DC utterly fucks it up (which let’s be real, could happen), Tim is still going to be the smart as hell Robin that will bend over backwards for the people he loves.  He'll still be the badass that would sacrifice himself to save the world.  He's still going to be a hero.  And he’s still going to be my favorite Robin. (Even if you did poor Stephanie real dirty there Tim. Sheesh.) [EDIT: Fixed a minor typo.  Thanks for listening to me vent!]

[queenpersephonesgarden]

Whumptober Day 1

Prompt: Stabbed Fandom: DC comics/Batfamily Characters: Stephanie Brown, Barbara Gordon Word Count: 826

She doesn’t see the knife that finally gets her, but she certainly feels it, sliding its way to a weak point between two plates of Kevlar armor and plunging into her abdomen with all the grace of a Crime Alley thug.

White hot agony erupts in her ribs, and Stephanie gasps sharply through the pain, stunned into stillness for only a second. Ohh, not good, ow ow ow-

She can’t stop for long; another goon tries to take advantage of her shock and raises a tire iron above his head, preparing to bludgeon her brains out, but Stephanie moves before he can.

Unlike the rest of Batman’s flock, she doesn’t have breathing exercises, or pain management training, or compartmentalizing to help her survive a fight with a blade sticking out of her. Instead, she has adrenaline and the complete, utter certainty that if she slows down again she won’t be fast enough to save herself.

So, she doesn’t stop again until all five men that had been surrounding her are unconscious heaps on the ground.

It’s about the same moment she realizes there’s something red dribbling from her mouth and her throat is burning with the taste of coppery wet.

“Not good,” she says out loud, voice strangely wobbly.

Stephanie breathes in and out a couple of times, letting her eyes drop to find the wound.

It’s not hard to find; the knife is still lodged in there, stuck between two ribs like a bookmark between two pages, and that comparison is doing nothing to calm Stephanie’s frayed nerves. She’d cold clocked the guy that’d stabbed her. If she hadn’t, he might have yanked it out and left her much worse off.

The adrenaline rush is starting to fade. Stephanie tries taking shallower breaths to ease the ache, but each inhale still brings a fresh wave of pain to her ribs.

She can’t lift her arms without blinking back tears, so swinging to Leslie’s clinic is out of the question. Walking through gang territory while injured is also a terrible idea.

With a grimace, Stephanie taps her comm, trying to ignore the little voice insisting that she shouldn’t admit defeat so easily.

“Hey O,” she manages to keep her voice light even as her side pricks with pain again.

“Spoiler?” Barbara says, voice clinically calm beneath the voice modifier overlaying her words. “Everything alright out there?”

“Uh,” Stephanie says rather intelligently, glancing down at the red seeping through the lovely eggplant purple of her uniform. Dammit. That’ll be a bitch to get out. “Depends on your definition of ‘alright’.”

Normally she’d try to go for something a bit more chipper, but she’s starting to feel a bit tired, which she knows isn’t a good sign.

Barbara has been doing this job long enough to know anything but an affirmative to her question is cause for concern; she doesn’t wait for injury details. The sound of her fingers typing rapidly across her keyboard fills Stephanie’s earpiece. “I have a fix on your location. I’m sending B and Robin to come get you; ETA three minutes. You doing okay?”

Stephanie nods her head even though Babs can’t see her and smacks her lips a bit. “Yeah, just sleepy. There’s a knife poking out of my ribs, but if it hit something important I think it would hurt more, right?”

Barbara’s voice sounds a bit wry beneath the modifier. “That can be hard to tell sometimes, Steph. Just stay awake until the boys get there, yeah?”

“Mhmm,” Stephanie hums, and she listens to Barbara tapping more keys and quietly giving instructions to her rescue team on another channel.

She stays where she is, doesn’t pace even though it might help her stay alert. She doesn’t want to risk dislodging the knife or driving it in deeper.

By the time a dark figure drops from the sky to land on a small patch of ground not occupied by unconscious thug, Stephanie had found a nice dumpster to lean most of her weight on to stay upright, watching red slowly drip further downward across her uniform.

That’s funny; it doesn’t feel super serious. She’s been stabbed dozens of times. She knows when things are serious and when they’re not.

It takes her a moment to focus on the tall silhouette approaching her, and when she does it’s to find his mouth is set in a grim line. So dour. She doesn’t know what he has to be upset about; she hadn’t even made the rookie mistake of yanking the blade out.

“Stephanie,” Batman says, and that’s odd, he doesn’t usually like saying names in the field. “Listen to me, you need to stay awake.”

It could be the blood loss talking, but Stephanie is pretty sure that gruff, gravelly voice is concerned.

She can’t quite help the dopey grin spreading across her face as she salutes jerkily with one hand stained red and mumbles “Roger that, B-man!” before everything goes dark.

[sebeth]

Young Justice: Independence Day, Fireworks, and Stopover

Warning, Spoilers Ahead…

 My goal is to re-watch the Young Justice series and re-read the comics before the January 4th launch of Young Justice: Outsiders.  Let’s begin.

Episode 1: “Independence Day”

July 4th: We begin, appropriately enough, on the United States’ Independence Day.  The title will have multiple meanings by the end of the first two episodes:  the kids’ semi-independence from their mentors and Superboy’s freedom from the Cadmus Project.

Do cold villains hate the Fourth of July?

Dick is the only Robin who would have laughter as a trademark.

“Juniors doing this for attention?” – One of my favorite parts of this series is the depth of knowledge for the characters of the DC Universe – even the obscure ones.  The current Icicle is a “junior” – his father was the original Icicle of the Golden Age era.  As a huge fan of the B through D list characters, I have a huge appreciation for anyone who remembers the small details.

Kaldur was an interesting choice as he was a new but fairly obscure character when Young Justice debuted. Garth would have been the more logical choice as he was a founding member of the Titans along with Dick, Roy, and Wally.

I admit I wondered why the series was called Young Justice because all I was seeing were the founding members of the Titans at this point (minus Garth and Donna).

“You’ll chat it up with the cops, the bystanders, with Cold even.” – One sentence reveals so much of Barry’s personality.

“I knew we’d be the last ones here.” – Again, a Barry trait.

“Speedy is Green Arrow’s sidekick.” “Well, that makes no sense.” – Accurate.

“Why isn’t anyone just whelmed?” – Dick’s mangling of the English language begins.

“02” – The assigned numbers correspond with the members joining the team.  The way to my heart is the small details.

Roy has a huge hissy even by his impatient, hot-headed nature.  We discover the reason later in the series.

“We could make an exception.” – Really, the Justice League wouldn’t allow their proteges on the Watchtower? Why?

Zatara and Wotan! Yay, obscure characters for the win!

“Glad you didn’t bring you know who?” Foreshadowing!

The boys invade Cadmus in all its glory: Guardian, G-Nomes, Genomorphs, Dubbilex, and, of course, Superboy.

“Dr. Desmond” is a hint for his upcoming transformation. The ���Blockbuster” label confirms it.

Wally is a science nerd. Makes sense with Barry as a mentor.

“File KR” – another hint.

“Sub-level 52”. – DC does love its 52.

Superboy!  Looking more like the Teen Titans-era version than the early, scrawny, fresh out of the pod version.

Hack! – Tim is typically the Robin most associated with computers.  To be fair, the Internet was pretty much non-existent when Dick and Jason were Robin.

Superboy, unsurprisingly, curb-stomps the team.

 Episode 2: “Fireworks”

First appearance of the Light aka the Cadmus Board of Directors.            

“Clone them.” – We later discover that one sidekick has already been cloned.

Dubbilex, the sneaky traitor, awakens the boys.

“Project: Sidekick” – Desmond is so imaginative when it comes to naming projects.

“He can talk.”

“Yes, he can.”

“Not like I said it.

Wally, listen to Dick and Kaldur and keep your mouth shut.

Kaldur is clearly the wisest of the original group.

“Batcave’s crowded enough.” – Well, it’s been said three is a crowd.

“What would Superman do?” – Everyone should apply this standard to their decisions.

“Don’t you give me orders either.” – I can see why it would be a sensitive issue – his whole life (all 16 weeks) has been controlled by others.

“You can leap tall buildings in a single bound.  Still cool.” – Sweet Wally being supportive.

“Don’t apologize. This is perfect.” – That’s how you know Dick was raised by the Batman.

“I finally have room to move.” – Yeah, speed is more useful when you have to space to run.

“Grab something from Project Blockbuster.” – If you were familiar with the villain, you knew what was about to happen.

“The Genomorph hero.” – Unfortunately, this bit wasn’t followed up on.

“Everyone back.” – Protective Guardian for the win.  Sadly, he’s outmatched by Blockbuster.

“Got your nose.” – Gross!

“You incredible bulk.” – Shout out to the competition.

Oh, look at protective Superboy and Aqualad covering their more delicate teammates.

The League arrives with Superman taking point.

Not loving Hawkgirl/woman’s costume.

Poor Kal breaks Superboy’s heart.  Bad Kal!  I understand Clark’s upset and confusion but don’t take it out on the newborn child.

“All 52 levels.” – Again, DC loves the 52.

“Why let them tell us what to do.  It’s simple.  Get on board or get out of the way.” – Superboy declares the true mission statement of Young Justice.

Red Tornado as team supervisor is a nod to the comic book version of Young Justice.

I did like the addition of Black Canary as team trainer.  It’s a nice nod to Dinah’s combat skills which Gail Simone spent most of the 2000s building up.

“This is the Martian Manhunter’s niece.” – Another surprise choice as Miss Martian wasn’t very well known in the comics.  Never will a character start out so cute and then devolve into creepiness.

M’gann’s obsession with Superboy begins immediately.  We’ll discover why later in the season.

 Young Justice #1: Stopover

The issue begins immediately after Superboy declares “Get on board or get out of the way.”

“Give me three days” Batman responds.

The group then realizes Superboy has nowhere to go in the meantime.

Kid Flash brings Superboy to Central City.  Wally explains the situation to his parents.  There is a cute moment when Mrs. West corrects Wally’s grammar: “Robin, Aqualad, and I…”

Superboy interjects with a “You weren’t there.”

Cadmus clearly didn’t instruct Superboy in conversation nuances.

Mrs. West informs Wally that he “leads a very strange life.  But we’re use to it. Largely.”

Wally’s parents are way more understanding and supportive than they are in the main DC Universe.

Wally’s parents ask Superboy’s name.  Wally responds “I call him Supey.  I think he likes it.” Conner doesn’t look like he likes it.

We stop in on Kaldur and Arthur’s return journey to Atlantis.

Kaldur: “We meant no disrespect.”

Arthur: “I would not be much of a king if I did not allow my subjects freedom of expression. Especially when their words carry such wisdom.”

Somewhere, Garth is wondering why he never had this type of relationship with Arthur.

Conner wonders “Think Superman knows I’m here?”

Wally awkwardly reassures Conner that Superman knows he’s in Central City.

Wally awakens the next day to find Conner sleeping upright in his closet. Conner informs Wally that he is not “used to sleeping in a bed.  Your closet reminded me of my Cadmus pod.  Except for the funny smells.”

Poor Conner.  A bed shouldn’t be a foreign concept.

The boys spend the day vegging in front of the tv.  Conner is very bored.  Each panel has Wally eating something different: a bag of chips, pizza, and a bucket of fried chicken.

Nice nod to Wally’s metabolism.

Late in the day a card arrives with a credit cart addressed to Wally “for expenses.”

Superboy wonders if it’s from Superman.

Wally vaguely confirms it’s from Superman with a “who else could it be from” even though he’s clearly aware it was sent by Batman.

Wally is so sweet – he keeps trying to reassure that, of course, Superman would care about Conner’s location and well-being.

Batman is also a very sweet Bat-Dad this issue.  Bruce would deny it but he was consistently sweet and supportive to Conner in the first season.  None of the other Leaguers thought Conner would need money to buy basic essentials like clothes.  Or that the middle-class Wests would need financial support to care for Superboy.  Wally’s appetite alone has to put a serious dent in their income.

If Wally hadn’t offered, I’m positive Bruce would have taken Conner back to the Batcave.  If for no other reason than Alfred wouldn’t have been thrilled with the idea of an underage child being left alone.  Batman would have also thought of the risks of leaving Conner on his own – Cadmus operatives could have tried to regain custody of a lone Superboy.

The boys head to the mall to shop for clothes.  A nice easter egg is the name of the store the boys enter: “Forever Sixteen”. Conner was genetically locked in that age for some time in the comics.

Conner buys multiple copies of the same black shirt.  Not someone who’s big on fashion.

We bop over to Gotham where Dick is impatiently wondering what Bruce is doing in the Batcave – it’s been almost two and a half days!

Alfred patiently reminds Dick that when one says three days, one means three days.

Poor Alfred has the patience of a saint.  Imagine what the poor man endures on a daily basis: Bruce in all his glory; hyper, energetic Dick, Jason’s explosiveness, Damian’s demanding arrogance, and Stephanie’s boisterousness.  Tim, Cassie, and Duke are the quieter children. They don’t cause Alfred as much fuss.

Back to the mall where Wally and Conner encounter Tommy and Tuppence, the Terror Twins – the same twins that Conner and M’gann impersonate at Belle Reve.

Flash and Superman arrive on the scene of the fight.  Conner mutters a single “Superman” before Clark flees from the scene.  To be fair, he was pursuing the Terror Twins but he couldn’t even offer a “hi” before he left?

Flash tells the boys to go home.  Barry will pick the boys up in the morning because “Batman has made his decision”.

Honestly, Batman made his decision as soon as he told the kids “three days”. Bruce simply needed the three days to implement his plan.

Conner asks Wally if “Superman will be there tomorrow”. Wall responds “Uh, sure, you know…if there’s no emergency somewhere.”

Conner’s downcast face shows he doesn’t believe Wally’s statement.

Conner asks Wally “Why’d you invite me to stay with you?”

“Well, un, Aqualad lives underwater.  And the Batcaves’s kind of a big secret. So I figured it’d be cool for us to hang.”

Conner smiles after Wally’s statement.

Wally is so sweet and supportive in this issue.  It also shows that Wally is very trusting.  He is inviting Superboy into his home with his civilian parents – and he knows how easily Conner curbstomped the entire team.  But Wally knows Conner is one of the good guys and doesn’t even hesitate to bring him to Central City.

The issue ends with the final moments of the second episode.

[sweettsubaki]

Now the 2nd to last issue of A Lonely Place of Living (Part 3): Detective Comics #967.

Let's go (under the cut again 'cause it's long).

Oh please do it. I'm joking though this does portray a fairly big difference with Preboot where Tim did that willingly…And I'd love to say it's because of the few deaths he had gone through, but he'd been at least a tiny bit suicidal since the beginning so…if there was a chance his death could save others.

Why does Tim have the Red and Black Costume if he doesn't know Conner ? Also why do they want Tim to have short hair so badly? I mean back then it wasn’t long but his hair was never especially short.

To be fair you started 5 days ago and he's been gone for like 2 or 3 months.

There was no freaking body, no bones, maybe there could be some ash but... How ?

How would he find it among all this wreckage?

This one's on you (or on your writer). Seriously. I get you want to make parallels with Bruce's death in Final Crisis but this is seriously badly done.

So it *was* ashes. Which brings the question: how did Mr. Oz manage to replicate Tim's DNA with freaking ashes. (unless they had a cloned body of Tim ready to disintegrate under their hand)

Question. If Tim's always been such a genius as he's being portrayed, did Bruce even mentor him? I have my doubts 'cause he still doesn't really seem to be able to do detective work (then again, considering Bruce's own detective work in 'tec Rebirth it's not that surprising). This scene is probably the only thing that has gotten anything other than exhaustion, frustration, confusion and/or annoyance from me though so Imma bask in it for a while.

So just like that? They better explain (it may seem like a dumb thing to say but up until now, Tynion's just been bringing up some trivia without explaining the whys and mostly not the hows, so I feel valid in fearing there won't be any explanation for this either.)

I'm gonna guess he and Alfred knew because they asked to be alerted if anyone came in his hospitals for weird reasons? Still not sure how no one realized it was Tim Drake though 'cause he probably gave the name. Also apparently he still isn't adopted by Bruce? But he had the black and red Robin Costume? Which is the costume he had when it happened? Granted he apparently forgot Conner too so... And what about his parents? Did they not die? How is Bruce his legal guardian, did he have the approval of Tim’s parents beforehand? Is he an official Foster Home? If not, how did he fucking get the approval of social services? Seriously this is so messy.

It'd be cute if I cared but Tynion's worn all the caring I could have had out of me.

Tynion you can barely handle the characters you already have, don't bring in new ones. (granted I'm not very interested in Bette as Flamebird, I think she'd have much more potential outside of it so…)

I've already said what I think about this when the preview came out. Here  and Here 

So what he just called her and she believed it? I guess this is the power of a Cult leader.

To be fair she was very supportive of you when you told her your plans when you started dating. Also you don't listen to her unless she tells you what you want to hear. That's literally how your relationship has been written since Batman and Robin Eternal so how is that even surprising (I'm also pretty sure she's not the only one who would have disagreed with you). Also wasn't she supposed to come by the Belfry? 

Am I the only one surprised that they finally call those the worst part of him considering they've been writing them as his pure awesomeness since…At least Batman Eternal ? Also way to cover up by using his Genius McGeniusness. I find it weird that he doesn't say it like "he's got a gun so he could probably…." Instead of just saying how badass older Tim is. I know he used Doomsday, but…He mostly just escaped him (one of the only somewhat not too badly done things of this arc). And he seemed to be pretty shocked by the guns so…Cause you know...They’re dangerous.and considering the Batfam rule it’s the kind of surprise and shock that could be detrimental. They should probably be prepared for that. WHY DO YOU RETAIN INFORMATION LIKE THAT? DO YOU SERIOUSLY NEED TO CONTROL THINGS THAT BADLY THAT YOU’D ENDANGER YOUR SO-CALLED FAMILY LIKE THAT? I SURE CAN FEEL THE LOVE YOU HAVE FOR THEM!  Of course you’re gonna tell me “but he doesn’t want to kill them”, he can still hurt them and his goal IS to kill Kate.

So…Is Tynion finally trying to have Tim think in a less business way about the team? (Still doesn't really work 'cause he's literally just giving them a role....because they never especially interacted anyway)

You know, I’ve already said (several times) that I didn't get why Tynion, Snyder and Pfeiffer made Tim even more of a tech guy than he was under Lobdell (in which he was the tech guy of his team but not the be all end all tech guy of DC or even the Batfam) because they already had Luke…well TBH I'm still wondering. YOu beside the fact that they don’t seem to remember you can be intelligent without completely relying on tech.

When did you even have the time to do that?

1. It's very hard to think someone who's supposed to be soooooooooooo intelligent never wondered why he changed the color scheme of his costume.. 2. We still have no idea how this ties in to N52. 3. Also, As I’ve mentioned here, here here and here, I still find hard to believe how this guy could possibly be friends with Conner 4. This better not be what I think it is.

Phew, we dodged a bullet. Though I don't know what this means about his biological parents in this new version.

OK This is actually close to tugging at my heartstrings (only because it's Alfred tbh, him and Gordon are probably the only characters I don't feel are completely bullshited through every story we get).

That's because he shouldn't. Now I get it's tempting to have a future evil N52 Tim arc since preboot Tim already got his own but you could have…I don't know embraced the difference between them and do something else?

It's nice to say that they didn't measure up where it counts but you're not saying what it is they didn’t measure up to. Unless you’re talking about your training in which case that’s some terrible phrasing you got there. Also this goes against quite a few things we've seen in both N52 AND Rebirth (mostly because you kinda seemed to forget they even existed in Rebirth).

I can't believe I have to say it again but, Tim, you guys barely think of the other members unless you're forced to be in the same room to work together (so do they, with maybe the exception of Damian and Jason who actually do think about at least you and/or Bruce from time to time -or Dick in Damian’s case depending on who’s writing it...’cause they can’t agree on that either). There's no family and it's why Alfred being part of your home is the only constant I can somewhat believe.

C'mon Tim, he's you in the future he's not gonna be pulled in by your cult leader tendencies, he has his own which he probably perfected over time. (Tynion probably tries to write Tim’s dad tendencies but he clearly has trouble doing it)

See? He may be partially lying to himself but he's still relatively immune to your manipulation tricks.

At this point it feels like Tynion's not even trying to make sense anymore and just tries to put as much trivia and fanservice as he can.

Anyway we only have one issue left, nothing has been cleared up and things are actually messier so Tynion has one issue left to try and sort this all out.

Also “I’m gonna hold off another minute” like Stephanie never got there, and if she did then we don’t know how and, again, they better explain it(and how he got her to believe it was him) in the next issue (and no “she was here the whole time” plz).