#Idk i understand why people dont like red robin as an identity but i do. I think its fun

[misspickman]

good morning! give me your opinions on ... okay this is hard i'm trying to come up with something that a) is a decent question that's not just "do you like honeydew milk tea" or something and also b) i genuinely don't know your take on for real. and the problem is that we yell about our takes at each other like daily. um.

okay how's this. open ended. in your opinion, what's the best vibe for tim's hero identity in the future? (not like rebirth future but like. the general postcrisis sandbox where we prefer to live.) any thoughts on names, costumes, etc?

...but also now that i'm thinking about it. in your opinion whats the best cold bevvy?

Hii<3 its good u specified not rebirth actually bc for rebirth i have no idea theyve made him so boring i cant think of anything that could be fun, but in a pre flashpoint future.. Im trying to think of something that would be thematically appropriate/something i can see tim coming up with but im so stumped bc both robin and red robin have been someone elses first and tim feels so tied to being a legacy guy, which isnt bad but. U know. I will take anything but robin at this point. Ive seen cardinal and rook around and i think you mentioned red heron once? Which are all great i enjoy them and i would love to see them. Britta and i also talked a lot about rosefinch but thats for a specific au... The thing is all these feel very random? I like them but i dont think tim would google a list of birds and just pick one he wants to be now (which is what i do. When trying to come up with a new tim identity) like i would like it to be something thats meaningful, like nightwing got offered to dick with a fitting story and robin is already a symbol, but i cant think of anything for tim rn.. It doesnt even have to be a bird tbf as much as i love a good bird. So im open to ideas i would love to hear what takes people have on this

Design wise i think ive been pretty loud about how much i love red robin in my ideal (and laziest) world i would simply keep that suit but thats not how it works.. I would definitely keep the cowl thats my one strong stance of the costume. Like aside from the fact that its sick in a freak way it is actually a good mask that conceals the face which. I know comics dont tend to care about but i do and i like it so<3 I also like this second design i think something like that could be fun it would never happen in rebirth but a girl can dream basically predictably enough my ideal costume would just be a modified red robin costume

Best cold drink imo.. Pineapple juice. Mango juice. Those multivitamin juices. I love a good cocktail a lot also a friend has unfortunately got me into hell (energy drink) and the cherry flavored one especially rules

[bigskydreaming]

I know how you feel about anyone other than Dick using thr Robin title, so for all of his successors, what mantle would you give them based in who they were. I know Jason becomes Red Hood and Stephanie became Spoiler, but if they could have skipped being Robins altogether, what would you have done?

Ah no, apparently I have not been clear here, so allow me to clarify.......all my rants about the Robin title notwithstanding, I have ZERO problem with there being other Robins besides Dick, and the others using the name as well. My only bone of contention is that I think the emphasis should be on the fact that later Robins are Dick’s legacy, rather than just Batman’s partner. Robin means something in and of itself, because of Dick. He wasn’t just Batman’s partner, he was one of the founders and leaders of the Titans, he had his own symbolism and meaning to the citizens of Gotham that was entirely distinct from Batman’s, rather than just being Batman-lite as his sidekick.......Robin was a distinct identity and mantle by the time it ever passed on to Jason......and it was the role of ROBIN that Jason and the others stepped into when it came their turn, not simply “Batman’s sidekick.” 

If the latter were all that mattered, they could have had any name, unique to each of them. But they all for various reasons took up a mantle that already had a history, a reputation, and those things were Dick’s, because he’s the one who made all that, who established that. It wasn’t Bruce’s just by association, and so the thing that bugs me is when the later Robins are treated or written as seeing no real connection between Robin and Dick other than him having come before them......and making Robin and everything it meant to them and everything they did as Robin entirely about Bruce and being his partner, as though it had nothing to do with the actual originator of the legacy they chose to be part of.

So really, my big beef about the Robins is just wanting to see Dick more often actually respected by those that followed him, rather than resented or just apathetic towards him. Cuz like, why take up a role that means nothing to you, instead of establishing your own? Why link your identity and reputation and message to everyone who saw you to the legacy of someone you don’t respect or have any real use for? You wouldn’t, IMO. It doesn’t make any sense for Robin to be SUCH a strong part of each of the later Robins identities if the mantle of ROBIN, specifically, didn’t hold weight for them. 

And even with say Tim, who had more than just Dick as a predecessor and someone to associate the Robin mantle with, like......you still can’t separate him from it and his role as originator of it, because while Jason absolutely made Robin his own and was worthy of recognition in his own right, he was still building on a foundation that Dick established first, and you can’t just yank that foundation out from under all that and act like everything atop it could still exist if it hadn’t been there to build upon in the first place.

So yeah, I’ve never had a problem with others using the name Robin, just the way he’s so often hipchecked out of having anything to do with who gets to USE his legacy or treated like what happens with his legacy should have absolutely nothing to do with him. And I think a bigger deal should be made out of the times Bruce or others have decided its their place to pass on DICK’S legacy than the one time Dick actually had the nerve to make a deliberate decision about his own legacy himself. 

I get that the whole Tim and Damian thing was written messily as hell, and there’s plenty of ways and reasons in which its understandable that Tim was upset at the specifics of HOW that went down, but the way its regarded as though Dick just had absolutely no right to say “this is my mantle that I created, and for various reasons I think its important to give it to Damian right now and that has absolutely nothing to do with not valuing Tim or his skills”.....not to mention the fact that this has over the years been regarded as SO much more controversial than Bruce giving the mantle to Jason without any input from Dick or even a headsup.....when Dick wasn’t just part of a chain of succession but rather the originator of that chain who had absolutely no intention of anyone else but him wearing it or being known by it, which in my mind is an even greater slight because here there wasn’t even any precedence of multiple wearers making it more of a role worn by many, but rather just straight up giving someone the end results of someone else’s hard work building up that role without ever asking if he was okay with someone else sharing what he made for HIMSELF......THAT’S what bugs, specifically.

Like, so many people write stories about how much this mantle and identity mean to each of these later characters and yet a good half of them also make the case that the guy whose literal legacy it is somehow means nothing to them at all, or else is outright disliked, resented, or viewed with varying degrees of contempt.

Make it make sense, you know?

I mean RIP to popular fanon versions of Jason, Tim and Damian, but if I were gonna be a superhero only identifiable or known to the public by my superhero alter ego, I’m gonna go with the mantle of someone I actually respect and admire and build off what they started or else I’m gonna make up my own damn name and start from scratch. But I mean hey, that could just be me being weird huh hfaklhflkahflakf.

But yeah ultimately it has nothing to do with thinking Dick should be the only Robin or even with the specific origins of the Robin name and WHY Dick picked it, like whether it was because it was his mother’s nickname for him or just modeled after Robin Hood, like either way it all boils down to the same thing for me: characters who take up a legacy mantle that someone else has built a preexisting reputation around should, idk, have at least some respect or admiration for the guy whose rep they’ve made the conscious choice to link themselves to and springboard off of, or else it just begs the question why didn’t they just build their own rep from ground zero like he did in the first place. As the unspoken answer that I think a lot of fans don’t really think about here being that this actually kinda makes them look like ungrateful asshats who want the perks of starting out Day One with a rep that someone else laid the groundwork for but don’t want to offer up any acknowledgments to the predecessor who did that work without having anyone else to pave the way for him. 

And remember, we’re talking about a mantle that’s KNOWN for sticking out like a sore thumb.....the bright colored, laughing child hero that SHOULDN’T be able to hold his own in a city like Gotham, but that everyone knows CAN and does just that.......because Dick established that it was possible, made himself into someone that was respected and viewed as capable even when by all appearances he shouldn’t be. Someone like Robin was ONLY unprecedented in a city like Gotham for Dick himself....because for every Robin after him, he was the precedent, the reason none of the others at least had to prove that Robin was a figure to be taken seriously......because he'd already established that, against all odds. Sure, the others absolutely all had their own struggles but like.......end of the day, they all wanted to be Robin because Robin already MEANT something to people, something they believed in themselves and wanted to embody, and its just weird to me how many fans try and act like none of that has anything to do with.....the character who like.....made it mean something to people.

LOL anyway, sorry for the complete non-answer to your question, but its only because its not a question I really have an answer for since I DONT actually want any of the others to not have been Robin. I honestly can’t really picture it because they are all very much Robins and tied to the mantle as well in my mind, and like, with reason and with it being a good thing. My eternal crankiness about the Robin mantle is really just 100% about it being a legacy mantle that people keep trying to distance from the character its the actual legacy of.

[thepringlesofblood]

thoughts on stranger things three  (spoilers. so many.)

this is just me yellin into the void as usual, but I like recording my opinions on things even if no one will read them 

good:

- every single scene w/ the robin, steve, erica, dustin gang, especially!!! the coming out scene. scoops?? iconic. steve and dustin’s secret handshake? transcendent. the drugged out back to the future scene? perfect. 

- eleven and max say fuck the patriarchy. love el’s new look 

- more competent women is always a win

- funhouse fight!!! carnival fight!!!FIREWORKS??!??!

- the destruction of the mall (sadly the only anticapitalist symbolism I could find)

- the scene after jonathan and nancy get fired where they’re angry about their separate marginalized identities making this loss worse. I really liked how it went into the ways it will impact both of them, and I especially liked when nancy got home and talked to her mom. 

- joyce going buckwild and getting shit done. 

- the portrayal of hypervigilance as a symptom of PTSD. All of these characters have seen some shit, and all of them pick up on the littlest things the second they present themselves because subconsciously, they’re always on edge, always aware of bad it could break. 

- most of will’s character arc. not all, but most of it. the queer experience of watching all your friends get dates and feeling like you’re missing out on something? trying to regain their interest because you feel lost and left behind? worrying that you’re not “growing up” because you don’t recognize romantic interest in yourself? not realizing you’re falling for your best friend until they get a romantic partner and suddenly you hate the partner even though they haven’t done anything wrong? a poignant, beautiful, very painful portrayal of queer teenhood. I really, really wish there was a moment that the audience realized will was in love with mike though. Like, it’s been building for a very long time. Also, a more thorough confirmation of will’s queerness would’ve been nice. I think they meant mike saying “you don’t understand bc you don’t like girls” to be that confirmation, but I want to hear it from will. Robin’s moment is so so so good though. 

- domestic fuckery 

- getting someone on the inside to help them/alexei as a character. not the symbolism or larger ramifications of his character arc, but how his knowledge and personality interacted. 

- mr clarke!!!!

- el going into someone’s memories again

- how prepared everyone is to fight because they’ve seen this shit before and robin and erica are just like ‘this might as well happen’ 

- keeping with the stranger things pattern of having a bunch of different groups of people all in different genres and then together they all meet up and go ?????

- I know every says billy didn’t get enough of a redemption arc but tbh I did not see his character development as redeeming in any way and I liked that. It didn’t excuse his abusive actions, it just explained them. There was no “oh he was secretly good all along”, no dramatic total character reversal on his death bed, just him deciding that he had enough of being controlled. Max didn’t get full closure with him, he didn’t say some big speech about being wrong or realizing the ramifications of his actions bc he hadn’t reached that point yet. he just said “I’m sorry” and died. that could mean “i’m sorry for how I’ve treated you”, “I’m sorry for how many people I’ve killed”, “I’m sorry for not being able to stop the monster”, anything. we don’t know what it means. we don’t get an explanation. It speaks to how survivors of abuse often don’t get to know why, don’t get closure, don’t get all the answers. 

- steve finally won a fight before getting the shit kicked out of him

- the whole no one knowing anything about each other bc no cell phones and/or wasnt there when It Happened. 

- Erica getting the DND set was poetic cinema 

- when joyce sees will on the firetruck and they run towards each other because finally, for once, will is completely unscathed, will isn’t the one who got hurt/possessed. I was already crying but this is the part where i had to get tissues bc I was sobbing. 

Bad:

- the red scare bullshit and glorification of capitalism. this show started out as “the US govt is doing shady shit” and now the big climatic “everything’s alright” is the army getting there?? what the fuck. There’s being accurate to the time period and then there’s sending a message. they could’ve subverted that trope in so many ways, but they just went for straight up “capitalism is great! fuck russia!” and I hated that. also, talk about one-note villainry. there weren’t even any dramatic monologues to make up for it, it just kinda sucked. 

- Hopper’s character in the beginning of the season. the scene where he gets wasted after getting stood up? shitty. not talking to el about his vaguely sexist overprotective actions? shitty. blowing up at joyce for no reason? shitty. he pulls it together in the end but it was OOC for a bit there. Plus I would kill for more “hopper and el work through their trauma together”, rather than “friend group splinters bc hopper did a yell” 

- I don’t know what to think about hopper’s death. It just hurts, and not in a satisfying, last harry potter book way. 

- why the fuck are the byers and el moving?????? did they ever give a reason???? WHY?????? WILL AND EL’S ENTIRE SUPPORT NETWORK, THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO KNOW WHAT THEY’VE BEEN THROUGH AND CAN HELP THEM, IS IN HAWKINS!!!!!

- the ads. omg the ads. lucas idc about your fucking coke. there’s so much goddamn product placement. christ on a goddamn bicycle. 

- previous seasons have had body horror, but it was all black goo so it was removed from reality and conveyed a psychological, otherworldly horror. and I liked that. WHY WAS THERE SO MUCH FUCJING MEAT IN THIS ONE??? THE MIND FLAYER LOOKED LIKE IT WAS MADE OF BBQ SAUCE AND I HATED IT!!! STOP!!!THE MEATS!!!!!

- can el not be injured......for oNCE?????

- also can people stop standing around staring at shit so much? theyve seen it before. it’s not like it’s a huge shock. people stand around for like 5 minutes before Doing Things and it annoys me. with the New Kids like erica and robin it makes sense but like....whenever theres a monster mike just sits there like :o cOME ON DUDE YOU’VE DONE THIS SO MANY TIMES GET A KNIFE OR SOMETHIN!!!

- WHAT. WAS. THE GREEN STUFF?????????????????? IS IT FUCKING PLUTONIUM OR SOMETHING???? WHAT THE FUCK!!! IF YOU NEED A MACGUFFIN BE LESS OBVIOUS ABOUT IT!!!

- idk about you but murray yelling at them about sex kinda rubbed me the wrong way. 

- speaking of, you caNNOT convince me that murray, 4 locks on the front door lives in a bunker murray, would take a goddamn enemy of the state to a carnival and leave him alone for any period of time. seriously????????

- look.....it was adorable.....i’ll give you that.....but.....the song dustin and suzy sang slapped me with secondhand embarrassment and genre disconnect so hard I found it impossible to enjoy. also...planck’s constant??? you could/......idk........call mr clarke????????? you’ve interrupted the man’s life for less!!!! I was also half expecting it to be joyce who remembered it from all the studying she did on the magnets. I did enjoy the whole “i met a girl at camp” story being unbelievable until it was but like I was expecting the thing she wanted him to say to be like a famous star wars love quote or something not an entire song jesus christ 

- if hopper turns out to be alive I will face god and walk backwards into hell. I suffered through supernatural, I will not be caught in a cycle of fake deaths again. 

- i get the whole “we’re growing up now” thing but aren’t they like 13? theyre still so young??? also like i dont rly care for the vague soap-opera-y vibes the core squad gave off. 

- the only people who got flayed were either a. already pretty shitty or b. completely unknown. like. it just made it less scary????

- hopper just fucking standing by the machine looking at joyce instead of running the 5 seconds up the steps into the room. seriously? was that supposed to be slow motion or was that real time??? 

- the whole thing with cerebro not working at the beginning sucked ass. 

- hey does mrs wheeler have eyes??? like??? there were exactly two (2) scenes she had with mike and nancy and both were Big Conversations like they live there right/????tbh i forgot she was their mom until those scenes bc of the whole billy thing, which i decidedly do not have an opinion on but like....do they eat breakfast there???