#Jack drake sucks as a dad

[misspickman]

Ok like jack drake wouldn't be 'kill all queers' type of homophobic but you cannot tell me 90s canonicaly sexist jack drake wouldn't be casually homophobic the way so many people are. Hes the dad who casually drops a slur or makes a shitty joke and insists on it just being a joke if called out. Hes the 'im not homophobic but i dont wanna see that in public' type of guy who gets defensive if you call them homophobic but then says that of course hes glad his kid isnt one of those gays. Its a trend and a phase etc etc you'll grow out of it! Its ok

[mamawasatesttube]

you guys i have so many thoughts about tdr. i have so much to say. like i don't want to be super mean but dude that comic fucking sucks and i can't lie i think it made me kind of homophobic actually

[anthyies]

jack drake is a dad for sure

[loisinherlane]

i miss steph and cass getting to bond over their supervillain evil dads. i wish we got more of that. more of other characters bonding over their normal evil dads too

[us-the-voices-and-more-voices-2]

he had a dad lol, he literally had John Grayson who was a good father who cared about him. though I just think brother dynamics bruce and Dick is just really fucking funny. lol.

yea, why not though? he can be his younger brother/son why not?

not like it'd really change anything it's just funnier and makes more sense with Dick and Damian's relationship as uncle/brother and nephew/brother.

idk :P

sibling dynamics bruce and Dick lol

Bruce: dick I swear to god, if you stole my last chocolate bar I will throw you out the window

Dick: *eating the chocolate bar* I dare you

Bruce: *running after Dick through the house*

Tim: NO HE'S YOUR SON WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS

Bruce: you GREATLY misunderstand, *stops his running* Dick is my chum.

Tim: yeah because he's your son.

Bruce: no, he's like my little brother or something

Tim: what.

Bruce: why do you think we tease each other and did so many drug busts and fought dangerous criminals together???

Tim: NO I thought you did that with all the kids!

Bruce: Dick isn't my kid though, he's like my asshole younger brother I was literally 20 when I met him and adopted him.

Tim: no

Dick who just came around the corner to see what was happening and saw bruce and Tim arguing holding the chocolate bar in his mouth

Dick: no way, you didn't know??

Tim: KNOW WHAT??

Dick: *slings his arms over bruce* this asshole is my stupid older brother. also no, I regret nothing that chocolate bar was good.

Tim: *in shock*

Bruce: I swear to fuck one of these days I'll finally have a whole chocolate bar... ugh.

Tim: no I do not believe this *hands cover his ears* la la la la la

Bruce and dick: *laugh their asses off*

[brucewaynehater101]

Tim trips through time. Tim meets Thomas and Martha Wayne and little kindergartener Bruce Wayne. Bruce thinks Tim is the coolest person ever! Tim is very worried about space and time but no speedster has come back to yell at him so...

He tells Thomas and Martha to not go to the theater in the future crime alley. He starts trying to synthesize the bullet resistant and knife proof fabric that looks and acts like fabric that he and the other Bats use in the future so he can replace Thomas's shirts with shirts made of the stuff and have lining of the fabric put into Martha's clothes. He teaches Bruce how to meditate and anger management techniques and stretches to take advantage of his baby flexibility and revels in having a little brother figure that looks up to him and doesn't try to kill him. He goes ahead and sets up some plans that won't come to fruition for literal decades but when they do they will seriously annoy and hamper Ra's. Alfred lets him help in the kitchen and Tim spots that he is absolutely in a thruple with Thomas and Martha. Thomas and Martha officially adopt him.

Then he goes back. The method takes the memories of the experience from the Waynes, erases the signs of Tim's presence in the past. Tim returns to his normal present but with one difference.

He had been holding his adoption papers when it happened.

Tim is legally and officially, according to the paperwork in his hands, Timothy Roderick (for Martha's dad because Jack sucks) Drake Wayne and Bruce's older brother.

Bruce's very distant memories of the time sort of come back to him now that Tim's back, not very clearly since he was five at the time. Alfred, having been older at the time, does remember young master Tim's time before much more clearly and feels a great deal more embarrassment in how he's treated master wayne, particularly the birthday incident. Tim mentally notes that Bruce technically still hasn't tried to actively kill him so he's not the worst little brother. Also all his siblings are now his niblings.

Time hijinks are so fun to mess around with.

I have no clue how that adoption paper will hold up in the court of law, but I doubt Tim cares. According to Bruce's parents, he is the older brother. He will not be taking any other answer as acceptable.

I'd also love to just read about the soft moments of Thomas and Martha referring to Tim as their son and fussing over all of his scars. Little Bruce looking up to Tim as the older one leads him through another breathing exercise.

Then, an older Bruce who's embarking on his training arc and the strange sort of familiarity he finds with learning the breathing exercise. The sense of calm, belonging, and home a simple pattern brings him

[i-care-bout-things-too]

Batfam Ages:

Okay, there is no such thing as an exact science when determining the ages of the Batfam, but the easiest thing you can do is work of the concrete ages that you /do/ know, and make them fit with canon events to the best of your ability. Now, canon changes all the time—which definitely makes this a challenge, but I’m going to just explain my process for determining their ages and you can disagree if you’d like, or you can use this to write fic like I do where ages are semi important,

Let’s begin. I’m going to give you the arbitrary number of 15, this will be important later.

Dick Grayson:

Depending on the canon, Dick is 8, 10, 12, or 15 when his parents die. All of these numbers will have problems depending on which you pick, but I go for the safe bet of 10 years old. Why? Well, a little known fact is that Dick ends up in juvie after his parents die, and he’s not immediately taken in by Batman. Thus, it takes a little while longer for him to become Robin, which doesn’t immediately happen after he becomes Bruce’s ward anyway, because Batman doesn’t immediately go and spill the beans. Thus, Dick ends up in Bruce’s car at around ten or eleven, but doesn’t become Robin until he’s 12.

Now Dick is Robin up until he’s about 18, when Bruce takes Robin from Dick because it’s too dangerous and Dick refuses to quit. Dick joins up with the teen titans full time, and he’s still Robin for a little while longer until we get Nightwing, aka Discowing, for the very first time at age 19. Simultaneously, while this is happening, a little kid is stealing the Batmobile’s tires.

Jason Todd:

Our beloved street rat Robin, Jason Todd, swings a tire iron at Batman and then gets taken out for fast food. It’s great, it’s cute, it doesn’t immediately lead to his adoption though, either. No, instead Jason ends up in an orphanage that is trafficking children. Bruce shows up one day to check up on Jason, and is made aware of this by his soon to be first adopted son (yeah, you heard me, Dick isn’t adopted yet). They take down the trafficking ring, and Bruce adopts Jason. Jason then becomes Robin at age 13.

Unfortunately for our boy, he was widely disliked by comic fans across North America, DC did a little telephone poll, and by a few hundred votes, DC changed comic history forever by killing off a high profile character what seems like /permanently/ for the first time ever. No resurrections this time. (Hah, right!). Which is to say, Jason Todd has the second shortest run as Robin at just two years, dying at age 15.

Tim Drake:

So then we get Robin numero 3. Tim Drake sees Batman getting darker and more violent and goes y’know, someone should do something about that. He tries talking to Nightwing, but he’s in a bad place with Bruce after learning Jason died via a Newspaper (yeah, Bruce sucks for that one), and tells Tim he won’t be going back to Robin. Thus, lil Timmy Drake gets an idea in his head. He looks himself in the mirror and goes, I can fix him, and then, Tim Drake becomes Robin at age 12.

Tim Drake has one of the longest runs as Robin, with only a mild interruption from a lil blond Bat.

Stephanie Brown:

Stephanie Brown starts off as the vigilante Spoiler, whose whole purpose in life is to spoil the plans of her C-list villain dad, Cluemaster. She meets Robin (Tim), hits him in the face with a brick, and then ends up dating him. Unlike most characters who appear a few times and never come back, Stephanie manages to stick around. She gets pregnant at age 15 (it’s not Tim’s, and no she did not cheat, this happened priorly), she gives birth, the baby is put up for adoption, and she becomes Robin after Tim’s dad, Jack Drake, finds out Tim is Robin and bans him from it. Tim is forced to quit and Stephanie picks up the mantle. She’s clocks in the shortest run as Robin, working with Batman for about two months before Bruce forces her to stop. Tim picks up the mantle again, and Steph goes back to being Spoiler—only to get killed by Black Mask, making her the second “Robin” to die. DC does retcon her death, and we later learn she was only badly beaten and sent off to live in a foreign country before she makes her return.

Jason Todd, Again:

While all this is going on, stuff is happening behind the scenes. Namely, Jason coming back to life. A common misconception here however is how long Jason was actually dead. While I wouldn’t be able to find the panels to confirm it, the true number is a “short” 6 months. Yep, while years passed in the real world, possibly decades, actually, Jason was dead all of 6 months. According to the books, he undigs himself from his grave six feet under (because Superboy punched through the multiverse or something?) and ends up wondering around Gotham as a mindless little zombie. Conveniently, Talia al Ghul stumbles upon her beloved’s lost little bird, and she decides to take him home and train him. He’s with them for a bit, gets dunked into a Lazarus pit, comes back very very angry, is shipped off to the all caste for a bit, and upon his return to the al Ghuls, is informed he’s been replaced by little Timmy Drake.

Jason makes his whole plan, and decides to make a splash by returning to Gotham wearing an old moniker of the Joker’s and taking over Gotham’s underworld. He beheads a few criminals, tries to kill Tim, tries to get Bruce to kill the Joker, and doesn’t really have success in those latter two objectives. That puts Jason at age 19, roughly. We don’t really know how to count the months he was dead.

Damian Wayne:

Shortly after Jason’s unmasking as the Red Hood, Damian Wayne turns 10 years old and beats his mother, Talia al Ghul, in combat. His prize is to be taken to his father and given to him for training. We know definitively that Damian is 10 thanks to this we can measure out the age gaps between the others and get their ages at this point in time. Dick at age 19 became Nightwing, while Jason is made Robin at age 13, so they have a six year age gap. Jason dying 2 years later at age 15 leads to Tim becoming Robin at age 12, they have a 3 year age gap. Tim is Robin for 3 years before Jason comes back and Damian trails after him a few months behind, putting Tim at around 16/17 while Damian is 10. I tend towards 16 instead of 17 because DC stopped aging Tim for a while, so it just makes more sense to pick the lower number. Thus, when Damian is 10, Tim is 16 as is Steph, Jason is 19, and Dick is 25.

Thanks to Damian being quite young, DC has kept an active track of how and when they age him. We know Damian is only with Bruce a few short months before he disappears into the time stream and Dick makes him Robin, and we also know that Damian’s 11th birthday is celebrated after Bruce is reinstated to the proper time. However, DC follows this up by killing Damian and making him the third Robin to die, the second to do so in the suit itself, and he’s dead for a significant number of months. In this time, Dick also dies—as in his heart is stopped by Lex Luthor for a few seconds, and then restarted, after his identity is revealed on live TV. Bruce decides to let the world believe Nightwing died and stayed dead, and Dick is sent off to Spyral to do secret spy stuff for Bruce. There is an issue around here in the “Grayson” run that claims Dick is twenty-one years old, which is ENTIRELY incompatible with the time line I just painstakingly established, and I go ahead and outright dismiss it because it clearly doesn’t work with a majority of canon. While Dick is with Spyral, Damian is brought back to life, and he goes on a year of redemption (which doesn’t actually last a whole year, but I digress). He and Dick meet again, and we move into Rebirth somewhere around here with the conclusion of Spyral and Batman and Robin Eternal.

General Events:

Damian turns 12 presumably sometime during rebirth, although not specified, I do believe Truth and Justice issue #6 to be his 12th or 13th birthday, but I lean towards 12 because of the costumes everyone wears in the issue. Steph is spoiler, Cass is Orphan, Tim is Red Robin, Red Hood has yet to don his solo Outlaw uniform, and Barbara is Batgirl.

I can’t name a specific issue for Damian’s 13th birthday, but it’s canonical that Damian turned 14 in his solo Robin series, Robin (2021) while he was off finding himself before the Lazarus Tournament, and since then, there’s been the Shadow War, Batman Vs Robin, Dark Crisis event somewhere around there, the Lazarus Planet event, Gotham War, DC Knight Terrors, and Beast World event, which catches us up to the modern day world.

Since Damian hasn’t yet turned 15 despite ALL of that going on, and is still for now at least, 14, that means Tim and Steph are 20, Jason is 23, and Dick is 29.

I know I mentioned Cass and Babs, and I would love to give you a proper age for them but I don’t know where to place them in DC canon like I do the others, however people do commonly place Cass roughly around the same age as Jason making her 22 or 23, and Babs tends towards being 6-8 years older than Dick, although that is an age gap DC has been slowly bridging over the years. Still, I put her at 35 years old. I don’t have a reference for Duke Thomas either, but he’s commonly placed as being two years younger than Tim making him 18 currently.

Lastly, I bring back the arbitrary number of 15, given that that is the number of years that separate Dick and Damian, I also use that age gap between Dick and Bruce—meaning that Bruce took Dick in when he was 25, and placing Bruce at 44 years old in main continuity.

Overall Ages Currently:

Bruce Wayne: 44

Barbara Gordon: 35

Dick Grayson: 29

Jason Todd: 23

Cassandra Cain: 22

Tim Drake: 20

Stephanie Brown: 20

Duke Thomas: 18

Damian Wayne: 14

[scintillyyy]

the thing about transforming jack & janet to be worse than they are in canon is that as a hypothetical i do think it can be interesting if it's done thoughtfully (despite all my normal bitching) (i would also be more interested if there was a lot more dick & tim in this scenario but i digress) (also, why doesn't mandated reporter dana ever get hit with the bad parent stick. i love her, but also. share the love here!! if you're gonna transform parents worse, let's at least remember *all* the parents to transform them.) and listen, sometimes people want their specific blorbos in angsty overwrought situations. i get it, i truly do, actually.

unfortunately. tim drake fic without there having to be a line making sure to mention that he was neglected & his mom didn't want to spend time with him is a needle in a haystack. like. even if the fic in question has no reason to be bringing them up. like they have nothing to do with anything there. but there they are, being bad parents. even if they're dead & tim has to be sad and angsty about them it's always a made up "that one time janet didn't want to spend time with her son", not like. you know. the time she got poisoned to death when tim was only 13. or the time tim tried to pull a boomerang out of his dad's chest with his bare hands. and that ubiquitousness of them sucking in 1 particular way that *always without fail* has to be mentioned even if they're dead and not the focus of the fic is what gets tiring (especially when there is genuinely a ton of canon based angst and happenings that are super interesting to explore or could be used instead for angst with literally no change to the fic that you never ever see in favor of "janet's a misogynistic caricature of a refrigerator mother"), not that people want to imagine and explore scenarios where they suck a little worse.

[dairy-farmer]

Had a dream where Clark "tricked" young 14 year old Tim into becoming his and Lois's "surrogate" by having Clark's baby since Loud had low rates of fertility, but they both clearly want a family. Tim happily agrees bc what an honor, right? So Clark starts to kiss him, but Tim is nervous bc doesn't surrogacy usually involve less... hands on methods? And Clark reassures him that he and Lois talked about it and figured this was the easiest and fastest way to get to their goal, so Tim easily agrees!

Turns out he isn't their "surrogate" from anyone else's POV, Clark confronts Lois after they confirm Tim is pregnant and spins a sob story about this poor kid who is looking for a family to take in their baby, and she agrees to adopt Tim's baby, with no idea that Clark is the one who knocked Tim up to begin with

An extra detail in my dream was that Tim lied to Clark also, telling him he was a virgin and had never had sex, just a lot of fooling around with other boys. In reality, not only was Tim far from a virgin, but this wasn't even his first pregnancy! He had this whole story for Clark later in the dream when he confessed to his lie, about how he got caught sucking off the PE teacher at school and the headmaster contacted Tim's dad and begged him not to sue. Jack Drake was livid and pulled Tim from school for a few months, but not to protect him, oh no, he had a specific punishment in mind for his slutty little boy

He fucked Tim hard for weeks following this incident, always cumming deep inside of him, telling Tim that he needs to keep his slutty pussy fucked full before some random person stakes their claim first! So he knocks Tim up and sends him back to school, where he gives blanket permission to staff and teachers that Tim is free reign throughout his pregnancy

When Clark confronted Tim about being his "surrogate", Tim was about five months post-partum and had his "little brother" waiting for him at home

Clark found it deliriously hot that Tim was already a slutty teen mom, and so when the baby is born, four weeks later Clark is /begging/ for Tim to please let him knock him up again, no one will be surprised, given how loose Tim is! Tim caves and opens his legs, knowing now that he isn't Clark's surrogate, but just his whore baby maker, but he kind of loves it. Lois is skeptical at first when Clark's comes to her with news that the troubled teen they were helping by adopting his baby was already pregnant again and asked if Clark would take this baby, too, to keep them together. She agreed, and Clark was ecstatic!

He explained to her that he would take the baby to go and visit their bio mom often while Lois worked, to keep the teen busy and help take care of him since he was alone so often. Lois thought nothing of it and so had no idea Clark was flying over to Drake Manor to fuck Tim on every surface of his house while Clark's baby slept and Tim's brother/son played in his playpen

That was basically it but the dream implied that Clark and Tim continued fucking and making babies together and no one was ever the wiser except for Jack Drake, who Tim explained things too. It's only bc of his intervention that Tim and Clark weren't caught tho, bc he knocked Tim up three times after Clark's second baby was born, preventing them from running to Lois with more and more sob stories about this poor delinquent teen

clarktim

clark asking tim to be his surrogate while making everyone else think that clark is just this noble, good hearted man whose helping out a poor, slutty little teenager who got themselves knocked up, acting as if HE wasn't the one who knocked tim up!

the way he convinces his wife to adopt the babies he fathered, has her agree to help raise the babies he made! its so delightfully scummy and perfect!!❤️❤️❤️

[silverwhittlingknife]

How do you feel about Jack Drake?? What are your thoughts on him and Tim’s relationship?

Anon, I hope you were interested in a novel, because look, I am fascinated by Jack Drake.  He’s key to a whole lot of what I find compelling about Tim as a character, and if I were in charge of DC, I’d bring him back to life.  This would make Tim unhappy but would IMO make for good plotlines.

Jack and Tim’s relationship is Complicated (TM)...

Jack and Tim hug in Nightwing 20 / Jack impulsively yanks a TV out of the wall in Robin 45 / Tim grieves in Identity Crisis

“I could tell the truth.  But I don’t.” - Robin 66

...and it involves a whole lot of Tim lying, and feeling guilty about lying, and thinking about telling the truth, and choosing again and again to keep lying.

And I think that’s great.

Below the cut:

Shorter version - key points about Jack

Really long version - my gentler take (vigilantism is choir and Jack loves sports) vs. my harsher take (Jack has some major flaws)

Final thoughts

Shorter version - key points about Jack:

He’s a bad parent.  He’s self-centered, he consistently prioritizes his own comfort and interests over his son’s, and when upset, he does things like order Tim off to boarding school.

But he’s never a bad parent in an actionable way.  He’s not like David Cain or Arthur Brown, who are abusive monsters.  Jack’s not a monster!  He just...kinda sucks.

He genuinely loves Tim. If Jack’s aware that Tim’s disappeared or is in trouble, he’s always worried and upset.  He periodically resolves to be a better dad, and IMO he’s always sincere.

And Tim loves him, a lot.  Tim’s protective of him and worries about him when he’s kidnapped or in danger, and when they’re reunited, Tim’s really relieved and usually hugs him (and Jack hugs back!). 

...But they have very little in common, and that’s a problem. Jack doesn’t value the things that Tim values, or respect the people that Tim admires, or care about the things that Tim’s interested in.  Tim lies to him a lot, but that’s partly because he correctly guesses Jack wouldn’t respond well if he knew the truth of what Tim’s up to.

The Batfamily is a surrogate family that Tim’s drawn to because of the ways his real family doesn’t meet his emotional needs…but also he feels guilty about that and disloyal. (And to the extent that his dad recognizes what’s going on, he's jealous and resentful!)

Very long version:

(LISTEN I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS)

Okay!  So first: Jack’s a character who IMO is pretty up for interpretation.  You can interpret him very charitably, and make excuses for the bad behavior, and fill in the blanks sympathetically when situations are ambiguous; or you can interpret him uncharitably, and emphasize the bad behavior. I don’t think either approach is invalid - it depends on what kind of story you’re interested in!  I have enjoyed Bad Dad stories and also stories that redeem Jack.

My personal take on canon is that Jack and Tim’s relationship is in a gray area.  Jack's definitely neglectful, and he does prioritize other things over Tim, but he’s never so bad that Tim can easily reject him, and he's never so bad that Bruce could justify taking Tim away.  He's just...not great.  Tim loves him, and feels loyal to him, but it’s a very mixed-up complicated love.

I have a gentler take and a harsher one which I switch between as the spirit moves me. xD

My Gentler Take (tl;dr: vigilantism is choir and Jack loves sports)

Here’s the core conflict: Jack and Tim are very different people with different values.  Tim idolizes Bruce and Dick and vigilantism, and secretly gets involved, knowing his dad will hate it. He gets increasingly wrapped up in his secret world and lies to his dad...because if his dad finds out, he’ll make Tim quit.

This is a great setup for an ongoing comic.  It’s practical, because it provides endless potential for plotlines, and it’s nicely thematic, because it maps closely onto relatable real-life situations with extracurricular activities:

Tim the drama nerd whose dad thinks he’s playing football and not in the school play; 

Tim the closeted-queer kid secretly getting involved in his school’s politically-active Gay-Straight Alliance; 

Tim the choir kid whose dad only values making money and wants him to go into the family business (and Tim keeps promising himself he'll give up choir soon, definitely soon, but maybe he'll stay in just a liiiittle longer, because they need him, you see, the last tenor left town, so...); 

Tim the computer geek with the sports-obsessed dad (this one’s just canon);

etc. etc.  

The extracurricular metaphor works pretty well for Tim’s relationship to vigilantism.  Tim's involved in his "extracurricular" because he genuinely thinks it's important and fulfilling, and he values it and wants to be good at it. He idolizes Bruce and Dick because they're good at it. He's been collecting information about it since he was a little kid, and hiding it from his parents because he knows they wouldn't approve. And mayyyybe there's also an element of low-key rebellion against his dad, and maybe that's secretly part of the appeal. And yet also as Tim gets more and more invested, he starts to daydream: maybe I could tell my dad and he'd be proud of me and supportive. But he doesn't, because actually he knows his dad would be upset and angry and make him quit.

And - again, just like with lonely kids and extracurricular hobbies - one of the things that happens is that Tim starts getting his unfilled emotional needs met ... by people he knows through this secret hobby. And people like Bruce and Dick start turning into a surrogate family. Which Tim feels guilty about. And also as Tim gets more and more wrapped up in their world, he has to lie to his dad even more, which means the distance between Tim and his dad gets bigger and bigger and more and more unfixable.

I love this dilemma. It's simple, it's recognizable, it provides endless sources for conflict, and there's no obvious solution! Tim can't tell Jack: he'll make Tim quit! And Tim doesn't want to quit, because he loves choir / art / theater / whatever.  Yeah, it’s difficult, and there are challenges, and sometimes he has doubts...but at the end of the day, he cares about it a lot.  And everything he values is there, and all the people he admires and cares about are there, and all he wants in the world is to feel like he's one of them and belongs there. So he has to lie, even though he doesn't want to lie, and he feels guilty about it...

...but also he ends up lying more and more.

(Sidenote: I think it's important that Tim chooses to keep lying - Tim's narration often glosses this as "I have to lie to my dad," and that's certainly how it feels to Tim, but this... isn't quite true. He has to lie to his dad, because if he doesn't, his dad will get mad at him and try to stop him, not because he literally has no choice about it.)

Other Reasons Why I Like The "Secret Extracurricular" Interpretation

(tl;dr it complicates not just Tim's relationship with his dad, but also all his other relationships)

Tim's problems have some obvious parallels to Steph and Cass, who both become vigilantes while rejecting their evil supervillain dads. But Jack isn't evil. And that means the Tim-and-Jack relationship is ambiguous and complicated in ways that I like. Steph and Cass can just leave their Bad Dads in prison, and say good riddance, and feel very righteous and triumphant about it! Tim’s more complicated. Tim gets into vigilantism ostensibly out of duty and altruism, but secretly, he's also involved for straight-up selfish self-fulfillment reasons. He's lonely, and bored, and his life feels pointless, but he thinks that Bruce and Dick are cool and amazing and he wants to be a part of the things that they do.  When his dad gets jealous of Tim’s relationship to Bruce, and feels like Tim’s looking for a surrogate family, he’s... not wrong.

And the ways in which Jack is not Actionably Bad complicate things from Bruce's POV.  If Jack was a straight-up villain, it’d be an easy call to keep in touch when Jack finds out and makes Tim quit...but he’s not a villain, not really.  So what do you do?  Do you try to surreptitiously stay in touch with Tim even though you’re ignoring his dad’s express wishes and thus forcing Tim to sneak around?  Do you respect his dad’s wishes and stay away from Tim even though you have a years-long relationship at this point?  

Again: a bit similar to the extracurricular analogy.  Say you’re the choir director and you’ve built this whole relationship with a kid in the choir, and you’re an important mentor to him and you care about him etc. etc. etc.... and then right before a big performance, his dad finds out he’s been secretly involved, and yanks him out.  How would you react?  Well, maybe kind of in some of the ways Bruce reacts.  You replace him. You’re annoyed with him. You miss him. You want him to come back. You’re also worried about him.  You’re upset with his dad.  But also... what should you do, exactly?

Bruce and Alfred and Dick care about Tim as if he were part of their family, but he’s not part of their family, and there’s a lot of interesting tension there.

My Harsher Take

Jack never hits his son.  But his temper is a big deal.

In his worst moments, he takes out his anger on Tim’s stuff - wrecking his room, or ripping his TV out of the wall and confiscating it.  When he’s worried about Tim, he usually expresses that fear by yelling at him / punishing him / sending him away - threatening to send him to boarding school in Metropolis in Robin III, or threatening to send him to military school abroad in Robin 92, or actually forcing him to go to an all-boys' boarding school post-NML.  

This is bad behavior!  It is Not Good!  

And you can easily connect the dots to a bunch of Tim’s terrible coping mechanisms, like the constant lying and or the fact that Tim’s go-to methods for dealing with interpersonal conflict are 1) repress it and pretend it never happened (most of his fights with Bruce), 2) withdraw from the relationship until he can pretend the conflict doesn’t exist (when his friends get mad at him in YJ, he quits the team for a while), or 3) literally run away from home.

Also, Jack is a Manly Man with firm opinions about how men behave vs. how women behave, and he thinks boys shouldn’t be scared and thinks Tim should date hot girls and pushes Tim to work out and wants him to play football and expresses period-typical sexism, etc. etc. etc. ... and though obviously this wasn’t what the writers had in mind at the time, all of that is certainly interesting to read backwards in the light of Tim as a queer character.

More Disorganized Thoughts on Jack Drake

Tim’s our hero, so we’re naturally more sympathetic to him, but it’s also true that relationships are a two-way street, and Tim doesn’t value any of the things his dad values, either.  Jack at various points is shown to care about grades, business, money, boarding schools, archeology, football, a kind of macho bragging-about-dating-hot-women ethos, and a very public and performative kind of caring. Tim tends to respond with discomfort or disinterest or even disgust.  When Jack gets on TV to try to rally the government to save his son from No Man’s Land, Tim isn’t touched—he’s mortified.  When Jack makes some bad investments and loses money, Jack’s deeply upset and his self-image is majorly impacted, and far from being sympathetic, Tim’s annoyed and kind of contemptuous of the idea that this is a problem.  Jack thinks fishing in the early morning and going to tennis matches is a fun father-son activity; Tim finds it exhausting and tedious.  And so on.

This means that Tim often longs to be closer to his dad in theory, but this longing is more tied to fantasy than to reality. He rarely seems to enjoy spending time with His-Dad-The-Actual-Person.  So for example, when Tim’s deadly ill with the Clench, he has an extremely poignant fever dream about telling his dad the truth and getting hugged…even as he insists in real-life to Alfred and Dick that he does not want them to tell his dad what’s going on.

The same is true of Jack, who IMO genuinely wants to be closer to his son and is continually declaring that he’s going to turn over a new leaf and get closer to his son…and just as continually backs out of activities or loses his temper when faced with spending time with his actual son.

Tim and his dad sadly get along best—by far—in Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder situations.  When Jack gets kidnapped or is in danger, Tim worries for him (and Tim grieves him deeply when he dies).  When Tim disappears or runs away, Jack’s genuinely worried about him.  So e.g. they have a really moving emotional reunion and hug when the earthquake hits Gotham, and Tim panics about his dad’s safety and comes running home (and meanwhile Jack’s been panicked about Tim’s safety!).  It’s the day-to-day, regular life stuff where they don’t connect.

Jack's written quite differently by different writers. Mostly, Tim's parents are at their least likable in his early appearances and early miniseries (this is where you get, for example, Jack and Janet being nasty at each other while a pained employee looks on, and Tim disappointed to once again get news of where his parents are via postcard - "I guess that sums them up! Never know where they’re going to be–or when–or even how long!” - and Tim alone on school break, and Bruce and Alfred thinking there's something weird going on with Tim's parents, etc. etc.). Jack's more sympathetic but still often unlikable in most of Tim's Robin solo, and he's almost invisible (but positively treated if he does show up) in Tim's team books.

For obvious reasons, Jack's remembered way more sympathetically after his death. Tim's completely devastated by Jack's murder, which he arrives moments too late to prevent, and he basically never gets over it. We see him grieving Jack again and again in Robin, and also in Teen Titans, and also in Resurrection, and again in the Halloween Special, and again in Batman: Blackest Night, and all the way up to the end of Red Robin. Tim also grieves for an extended time over Janet - he hallucinates a happy reunion with her when he's feverish in Contagion, and hallucinates her in the final issue of Robin, and the reveal-your-buried-emotions song in Robin 102 brings up his grief for her too (meanwhile, other characters dance or laugh or otherwise get giddy).  Tim’s grief over his parents’ deaths is intense and long-lasting.

I'm not going to clip comic panels because this is long enough, but if you're curious, here's a nice and fairly lengthy compilation of comic panels with Tim and Jack.

If you're interested in a Jack-centric story with a softer-but-still-recognizably-canon take on Jack, I really like the way Jack’s narration is written in the one-shots Heart Humble (set shortly before Jack dies) and Never a Hero (Ra's resurrects him during Brucequest, and Jack's archeology skills turn out to be unexpectedly useful).

[ao3feed-brucewayne]

The dad that stepped up

by Speechless_since_1998 He rubbed his eyes, “What's happening? Why is there a child in the cave?” “Hey, I'm almost fourteen, I'm not a kid anymore...” “Robin, not you,” he nodded at the boy. "Who is he?" Nightwing chimed in, "This is Tim Drake, his parents suck." "Hey!" “Well, it's the truth, little bird.” Words: 1539, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Fandoms: Batman - All Media Types, Batman (Comics), The Batman (Movie 2022), DCU (Comics) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: Gen Characters: Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Ra's al Ghul Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne, Jack Drake/Janet Drake Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Tim Drake Joins the Batfamily Early, Kid Tim Drake, Good Sibling Jason Todd, Good Sibling Dick Grayson, Protective Bruce Wayne, Good Parent Bruce Wayne, Kid Fic, Cute, Tim Drake Has a Plan, Cute Ending, Family Fluff, Brotherly Love, Father-Son Relationship via https://ift.tt/LrvOmwB

[bitterrobin]

21, 23, 10 for choose vioelnce

10. worst part of fanon -- see I could go specific on this and say: Tim gets whumped so hard that I barely see anything positive of his canon in fics and everyone else around him are made out to suck, and Jason gets put on a pedestal because he serves as an easy counter to Bruce's philosophy and while thats cool he also gets whumped to hell and back. I could say Dick gets utterly fucked over by other fans because they're so willing to overlook his canon traumas in service of emotional/narrative fodder for their favs and Damian will never get to grow up in fandom's eyes because they still think of him as a spoiled psychopath who should've never been born. I could rant about how female characters don't exist to them because misogyny and a fixation on male trauma and that Bruce is never understood. He's either an unnaturally good and kind father who advocates for therapy and acts like a robot reading a parenting manual OR he's the worst abuser and manipulator, so bad that if a kid says they love him they're actually getting Stockholm'd. But all of these claims fall under the same umbrellas. The truth is the worst part of fanon does this: it obsesses over labels and trauma and the right side of an argument like it'll get their favorite character a good grade in "most traumatized abused child vigilante in DC" AND so actively refuses to engage in the source material that those characters they work so hard for aren't even the comic character anymore. Every time I read a fic or a meta that falls under these, I get really confused. That isn't Tim Drake thats Timely Rake. That isn't Dick Grayson thats Ricky Whitedaughter. That isn't Jason Todd thats Jackson Rod. That isn't Damian Wayne thats literally Damien from The Omen. That isn't Bruce Wayne thats his evil twin Brick Water. Unfortunately theres no fixing it because taste and interpretations are subjective, and I think the entire fandom would go down in flames kicking and screaming before we ever tweak popular fanon ideas to be a little more accurate.

21. part of canon you think is overhyped -- i'm going to get crucified for this but everyone slotting into a perfect family dynamic where everyone loves each other and if anything bad happens, a sibling will fix it for them. I'm not exempt from enjoying fluff fics, its how I got into the actual fic/tumblr side of the fandom, but all of these characters have such a depth of history to them that fluff starts to feel like a disservice imo. Bruce and Dick's relationship can be complicated, they aren't just father and son - they're brothers and best friends and partners and (unhealthily) emotionally depend on each other. Bruce and Jason's relationship can be about the father and son who drift apart and maybe never reconcile, they don't have to be constantly around each other and "forgive" each other when all they do is disagree and thats ok. Bruce and Tim can be a complicated tale of hero worship, mentor/mentee and father and son dynamics because for so long Bruce wasn't Tim's dad and that was fine. Thats what makes it more interesting to explore later when Jack dies and Tim gets adopted. Bruce and Cassandra can be dark mirrors to each other, their dynamic as shown in Batgirl was not entirely wholesome. Bruce has expectations of Cassandra he doesn't have of anyone else because he sees himself in her. (Also Barbara is Cassandra's mother figure not just her older sister). Bruce and Damian can be loving and they can be constantly drifting apart and getting close. Canonically, Bruce had little interest and time in being Damian's father the first years of Damian being a character. Thats ok, and we can explore Damian's feelings with that without cramming Dick into the father slot. Dick doesn't have to be Damian's dad, they can be brothers and partners. All of these people existed in different facets of time and space. They shouldn't all be living under the same roof like the Brady Bunch, its just too much. No one has to fill the father role when Bruce isn't, and Bruce is not a perfect nuclear father either. None of the siblings are perfect children or siblings either. None of them are even normal, and I think rivalries and grudges and hatred and jealousy and clashing parenthoods and perspectives are always more interesting than everyone being cardboard cutouts that spout therapy-speak at the right time.

23. ship you've unwillingly come around to -- im not really a shipping type person, tbh. if there are ships I hate because they do a disservice to both characters in that ship (jayroy, jaykory, damijon, damirae) then I'd definitely say I haven't come around to them. I guess I will say I actively hate on damijon less than I used to and come to accept it as an inevitability, but the same cannot be said for specific kinds of damijon fans.

[mamawasatesttube]

you guys i have so many thoughts about tdr. i have so much to say. like i don't want to be super mean but dude that comic fucking sucks and i can't lie i think it made me kind of homophobic actually

[soleminisanction]

Now that Robin: Tim Drake has been done for awhile, what are your thoughts on it? Parts you enjoyed most? Least favorite things? 

Overall I enjoyed it. It's not the greatest comic I've ever read or anything but I did like it, and I feel sad looking back on it because I wish it'd gotten more time. I wish more people had given it a shot rather than dismissing it just because they didn't like the artist for the first arc.

There's a lot of things I enjoyed about it. I think the marina made for a unique setting and the people who lived there were all interesting characters. I liked the fact that the development of that setting and those people highlighted the way Tim almost instinctively looks out for and cares about the people around him, making a point to get to know all of his neighbors personally.

I liked how the first arc honed in on Tim not just being a detective but a detective fanboy, bringing back his canon love of Sherlock Holmes and filling it out with other classic detective fiction. Moriarty himself was a little meh but the idea of his character as Tim's dark mirror, an obsessive fan of the detective narrative who treats other people like pieces in his game or dolls to be molded to his whim and is obsessed with finding a detective to match his villainous "brilliance" -- that's a solid concept.

I also liked the supporting cast. Bernard of course was great, I do actually enjoy his relationship with Tim and I think his development was interesting. They got some great romantic moments too, particularly after the artist switch, and I really like the fact that he figured out Tim was Robin on his own -- it makes total sense given his Bat-conspiracy focus and, to me, is almost certainly a big part of why Tim likes him.

But I also really liked Detective Williams and Sparrow, who I hope don't get completely shelved. Gotham can always use a few more good cops kicking around and I kinda like that some of the We Are Robin kids like Darcy and Izzy are still hanging around as a step between the Bats and the civilians. Plus it was good to give TIm someone to bounce off of that didn't have all the baggage that comes with the other Bats.

I would've liked to see a full version of the second Chaos Monsters story, it's a shame that got cut short.

My least favorite part was the marketing. I don't know who it was that decided to lean into stuff like, "Move over Damian, the world's favorite Robin is back!" but it was just... embarrassing and unnecessary and completely against the tone of the story and just, ugh. That sucked.

I also was not a fan of the idea that Tim, quote, "Wanted to be like [his] dad," with that Dad here meaning Jack, but that was a minor thing. Meghan Fitzmartin is well-meaning and seems very sweet but she's also sometimes just, painfully straight.

Still overall I liked the book. It's not what I would give people if I wanted to give them an introduction to Tim or even just catch them up on his modern incarnation -- I'd sooner start with the Urban Legends story and then point them straight to Zdarsky's Batman -- but it was ultimately fine. Had potential, shame it wasn't allowed to reach it.

[starlooove]

Ppl will proudly say Jack and Janet are abusive enough to use your best American girl for TIM DRAKE (enough.) but turn around and go ‘canon my detested for bad dad bruce’ and it’s funny bc the idea that Jack and Janet suck do nothing for tims actual character unless it’s fandom characterization. The most I can see is him being more secretive and lying to protect ppl he cares about but that’s a given anyways - pretending that tim is like heavily neglected and hurt to justify shit u make up is so weird when u can’t even stomach that the way everyone else acts is a result of Bruce being a bad parent? Even if like casual physical abuse is ooc why they hell is everyone else so paranoid and competitive for what they perceive as limited affection? NOOOW it’s just Bruce can’t communicate and it’s not his fault a conversation therapy from his coworker and sillay moments will fix it - but Jack and Janet should rot what the fuck 😭

[space-specs]

I, T and X <333

Thanks for the ask bestie, this was very fun!!

I - Has tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why

BBC Sherlock. I really wanted to watch this show when it was all over tumblr and all my friends were watching it back in like 2014, but I never got around to it. Eventually, people stepped back and were like "actually, so much about this show sucks so much", and I was just kinda glad I'd never actually watched it yet and now I won't. If I want Sherlock content, tbh, I'll probably just rewatch "Elementary, Dear Data" from Star Trek: TNG. Or finally finish the Enola Holmes stuff.

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending, about anything at all (gender identity, sexual or romantic orientation, extended family, sexual preferences like top/bottom/switch, relationship with poetry, seriously anything)

Duke Thomas cannot make direct eye contact with people. It gives him a splitting headache. Since eyes both absorb and reflect light, looking directly at someone's eyes creates a sort of feedback loop of light beams for him.

Cass is, in all actuality, older than Jason. However, because there is some ambiguity about her precise age, both of them frequently insist they are the older sibling of the two. They could very easily confirm who is older; they both refuse because they don't want to be wrong.

Steph is more of the common sense in the batfam than people give her credit for. Don't get me wrong, she is far from normal (she is vigilante, she grew up in Gotham), but she is the one with the wherewithal to, idk, solve her problems by actually talking to people. She's clever and witty and quick on her feet and actually some really good and really practical people skills.

Duke and Jason are both functionally immortal for different reasons. (Also, they are good brothers and DC needs to bring back the two of them getting to interact).

Tim doesn't call Bruce "dad" and probably never will. Not because he doesn't see Bruce as his parent, but because "dad" has some very complex connotations for him and he doesn't want to apply those to Bruce. More specifically, because good batdad is canon to me, Bruce is better than what "dad" means to him. (It’s also important to me that Jack does try to be a father to Tim and does love him. But loving your kid is not always enough. Sometimes you still hurt them).

There's definitely something I'm forgetting that I'm even more die hard about, but this is already more than I intended on writing for this one 😂 needless to say this is a fun question. (Also maybe putting this out will kickstart me writing the fics I have planned based on 3 of these)

X - top 5-10 characters who are yoUR PRECIOUS BABIES AND YOU WILL DIE DEFENDING THEM

Tried very hard not to just put every single batkid on this list but know that I would go to war for any of them I love them all so much.

In no particular order

1. Jason Todd -- listen, do I think his philosophy on crime should be applied to the real world? No, absolutely not. Has he done anything wrong ever? Also no.

2. Duke Thomas (bonus: the whole We Are Robin crew) -- if you hate Duke Thomas, meet me in Denny's parking lot. Something is clearly wrong with you and I will right it via blunt force trauma /j.

3. Tim Drake -- Catch me untangling the mess that is his fanon and canon characterizations and weaving a beautiful tapestry out of it. I see so many wrong interpretations about him and I am tired. Very carefully sorting out what should and shouldn't be kept from both fanon and canon every time I write him.

4. Cassandra Cain -- she has done nothing wrong ever and she deserves to be Batman. my favorite weirdgirl ever <3

5. Trevor Belmont -- my wife /p just introduced me to Castlevania and I did not expect to love it this much. Trevor is my babygirl and I would die for him.

6. Sypha -- I love her soooo much and I am dreading any potential romantic arcs to come about since she's the female lead because I really don't think she needs it. Please let her be cool af and single and not ruined in favor of the inevitable contrived romance, oh god.

7. Rise!Mikey -- I started my dive into tmnt content with Rise and then I tried to go back and watch 2012 because people said it was also good but they were so mean to Mikey 😭 I couldn't do it. He is like a squeaky toy to me.

8. Rise!Donnie -- I am captivated by his autism swag. Enough said. (Him and Mikey as a brother duo is so precious to me).

9. Razer -- Watch Green Lantern: The Animated Series if you haven't already. Do it. I promise you will not regret it. I won't say anything because spoilers but I have so much to say.

10. Talia al Ghul -- I am taking a knife to canon and carving out the parts I don't like because she is a good mom, goddammit!

Bonus: Koriand'r. I haven't read enough comics to know much about her, but I respect woman juice everyday for my favorite 6+ ft buff alien woman. (She should get to be huge and strong and I will fight for that).