#Jason's character is a tragedy and him getting love after he died makes so much sense

[somewhereincairparavel]

Imagine, a few hundred years after Jason's death, he becomes a historical figure, unbelievably famous, that people write books about him and New Rome has his face printed on their gold coins. It's a Van Gogh situation where he isn't appreciated or noticed of the work he's done until centuries after he's gone, simply because one archaeologist decides to dig through the past and discover his true character, even offering Apollo a gift in exchange for an interview in the process, since only he had seen Jason alive for the last time. And Apollo starts to tear up recalling Jason's last moments .

[nilolemillion]

Let’s get one thing straight (very unlike me): Batman loves his kids. All of them. He’d die for each one in a heartbeat (of course not kill for them, cough cough Jason). But if you think for one second that Bruce Wayne, the guy who regularly dresses as a bat and fights crime at 3 AM (cough cough insomniac furry.), has a favorite BatKid, then clearly, you’ve never met his children. He doesn’t have a favorite, not because he loves them equally, but because none of these potatoe pie pumpkin cutie-headed chaos gremlins deserve to be his favorite.

Let me explain.

Dick Grayson (WOOP WOOP that’s the sound of that police. Yes Karen, I know he’s no longer an officer, NO KAREN I DON’T GIVE A FUCK.):

The first pancake. The golden boy. Everyone assumes that Dick has a special place in Bruce’s heart because he was the first Robin. He’s charming, he’s capable, and he smiles like he’s got a fucking sponsorship deal with Colgate. But let’s be real, this guy left the nest the second he could, started his own superhero gig in Blüdhaven, and still occasionally shows up to remind Bruce that he doesn’t need him (yes king, show your independence, love that for you.) And you know Dick is the type to throw that ‘you’re getting old, B’ line out there just to twist the knife. Bruce loves him, but how can he be the favorite when he’s busy playing Batman-lite with better hair?

Jason Todd (My personality favorite zombie, resuscitated character in the whole world, I love him so much and all the Outlaws.):

Oh, Jason. The problem child. The one Bruce failed, died, and came back with a vengeance (literally). You’d think after all that tragedy, Bruce might go a little easier on him. But Jason? This kid shows up at family dinners with guns blazing, ready to debate the morality of lethal force like it’s Thanksgiving dinner conversation (and it is, I did it and it was quite fun.) Sure, Bruce would die for him (again), but Jason pushes every button Bruce has like it’s his job. One minute he’s trying to be the better vigilante, the next, he’s making Gotham’s criminals wonder if Batman has gone completely off the rails. If Jason’s Bruce’s favorite, it’s in the ‘how are you still alive and not in jail?’ kind of way.

Tim Drake (DC DROP ANOTHER CANON ILLUSTRATION OF TIM BEING A CUTE LIL STALKER AND MY LIFE IS YOURS!):

Tim’s the brainiac of the family, the kid who deduced Bruce’s secret identity with zero help. Naturally, you’d think this would earn him some serious brownie points. But here’s the thing, Tim works way too hard. He’s got all the signs of a caffeine addiction (which is completely and absolutely understandable, he’s just a little silly and caffeine addicts are hot, yes I am too), zero concept of work-life balance, and is always trying to out-detective Bruce. Yeah, Bruce admires his dedication, but let’s be honest: Tim’s the kid you have to physically shove into bed because he thinks sleep is a myth. Bruce is just trying to prevent this kid from burning out before he’s 30. How can Tim be the favorite when Bruce spends most of his time making sure he doesn’t turn into an insomniac vigilante-zombie?

Damian Wayne (I’m literally making my birthday party theme of him, that should explain enough.):

Ah, Damian. His literal blood son. You’d think that alone would give him a shot at favorite-child status, right? Wrong. Damian is an adorable, pint-sized murder machine with a superiority complex the size of Wayne Manor. Bruce loves him fiercely, of course, but Damian’s idea of father-son bonding is training in deadly combat and arguing about why his assassination techniques are totally valid. Plus, he’s got that whole ‘I’m the heir to the world’s deadliest league of assassins’ thing going on. Sure, he’s Bruce’s kid, but you know he’s never going to let Bruce forget it. Not exactly favorite material when he’s constantly plotting world domination during family movie night. (Dw, he won’t act on it, Alfred made very clear that the batkid who dares dominate the world will be banned from his pastries. Besides, he’s too busy scratching Titus’ belly, he doesn’t have time to dominate the world. PRIORITIES BITCH.)

Cassandra Cain (I stan her more than I stand my own life. Help. I literally crocheted a plushy of her.):

Cassandra is probably the least rebellious out of the bunch, which should give her an edge, right? Wrong again. Cass may be quiet and respectful most of the time, but when she does go rogue, it’s on her terms, and it’s not just a small rebellion. No, Cass will disappear for weeks on end, take down a crime syndicate by herself, and then show up like it’s no big deal. Bruce can’t even stay mad because she’s so good at what she does. But Cass’s habit of ghosting the entire family and dealing with things solo? Yeah, it keeps her out of the running for favorite. Plus, she’s secretly the most dangerous one, and Bruce can’t play favorites with someone who could take him out without even blinking.

Duke Thomas (He’s was the sunshine I was midnight rain. DC DROP ANOTHER CANON ILLUSTRATION OF ISABELLA WITH DUKE AND MY LIFE IS YOURS!):

Duke the daylight protector of Gotham, which is cute and all, except that Bruce has no idea how to parent in the daylight. Duke brings this bright, positive energy to the BatFamily, which sounds great in theory, but this is Bruce we’re talking about. The guy who lives for darkness and brooding. Bruce loves Duke’s optimism, but it’s like trying to teach a vampire to enjoy the sun. Plus, Duke has a habit of questioning everything, and sure, Bruce appreciates his independent streak, but do you really want a favorite who keeps making you reconsider your life choices?

Stephanie Brown (My sweet dear and beloved purple queen, I love her so much.):

Not an adopted batkid, her mom is alive I think… But I don’t give a duck KAREN. Stephanie is the wildcard, the one who does whatever she wants, whenever she wants, and somehow gets away with it. She’s staged fake deaths, gotten fired from being Robin, and still keeps coming back for more. Stephanie’s whole existence is an exercise in chaos theory. Bruce loves her resilience and her ‘never-say-die’ attitude (literally), but how can she be his favorite when her middle name might as well be ‘Loose Cannon’? She’s the kind of kid who’ll fight crime while live-tweeting it. Yeah, Bruce loves her, but he’s not rewarding that kind of energy with a favorite child title. (I’m still confused about her age thingy.)

So no, Bruce doesn’t have a favorite. Because how could he? His kids are walking, talking disasters, each one a different flavor of chaos. Bruce loves them all more than anything in the world, but picking a favorite would be like trying to choose between different natural disasters. Earthquakes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, they’re all beautiful in their own destructive way, but you wouldn’t want to pick one to live through. In the end it’s about Bruce somehow surviving all of them.

[nightwings-robin]

Some of y'all act like Tim hated Jason when Tim was Robin and Jason was still dead but I disagree.

Not a lot of people do this but I've seen it enough times that it's gotten to bother me a little bit.

Let's take a look at some early Tim opinions on Jason.

Detective Comics (1937) #618

"Just a boy like me... One day I'll be as good as Jason."

This issue came out in 1990, so it's rather soon after Jason died and Tim was introduced (which happened in 1988 and 1989 respectfully). This is what Tim thinks about Jason very early one. This doesn't read as even remotely like hatred to me.

But wait, there's more!

The very next issue shows Tim having sympathy for Jason.

Detective Comics (1937) #619

Tim is noting the similarities between Dick, Jason, and himself. This issue is in the same arc when Tim's parents get kidnapped and his mom is killed. He has sympathy for Dick AND Jason, who both lost their parents. Tim is faced with the same pain and it shows his compassion for Jason.

Now this isn't to say that Tim was unaware of some of Jason's problems and maybe did blame him for his own death a bit, as shown with this panel:

Batman (1940) #455

Tim knew that Jason had times of anger and says he won't let that happen to himself. I don't think Tim is being quite fair here in claiming that he won't let his anger get the better of him like Jason's did, but Tim is hardly the only character to think this way about Jason and, again, this doesn't read as hatred to me. If anything, to me this reads as a character with preconceived notions about how another person died and not wanting to make the same preconceived mistakes as that person.

Is he being a bit harsh and 'holier-than-thou' here? Yes. Do I think this is hatred or some other malicious view of Jason? No.

There is also that time Tim hallucinated Dick and Jason, and they gave a sort of "pep-talk" to him about being Robin.

Batman (1940) #456

These are Tim's own thoughts manifesting through Dick and Jason. I do dislike that he imagines Jason blaming himself for his own death but think about why Tim would think this about Jason. Tim never met Jason. Wasn't there when he died. He only knows what he read and what he was told about Jason from other people. People like Bruce, Dick, and Alfred. And while those three loved and cared for Jason, they also unfortunately reinforced the belief that Jason was responsible for the Joker murdering him. It's not great but it does stand to reason that Tim would think this about Jason.

But it's not all bad stuff. Tim imagines Jason cheering him on alongside Dick:

Batman (1940) #456

Tim imagines not just Dick but also Jason telling him he can do it. That he can figure it out and be a good Robin. I feel like if Tim really did hate Jason, he wouldn't imagine Jason rooting for him.

Tim goes on to imagine Dick and Jason later helping him out with a fight:

Batman (1940) #457

Again, Tim imagines both Dick AND Jason encouraging him during a battle. He imagines that they both want him to succeed as a hero. Why would Tim want Jason's approval if he dislikes Jason? Because he doesn't dislike Jason. Tim respects him enough as Robin to think that he wants Jason's encouragement.

and then at the end when he officially becomes Robin:

Batman (1940) #457

"Dick made it a symbol... Jason gave his life for it. Failing them... what they fought so hard to build... worries me."

Tim sees being Robin as not just carrying on Dick's legacy, but also Jason's. He wants to live up to Jason just as much as he wants to live up to Dick. He wants to be a Robin that both of them can be proud of.

Like none of this says to me that Tim hated Jason. Did he look up to and idolize Jason the way he did with Dick? No, but that also doesn't mean that Tim hated him.

I get the feeling that Tim viewed Jason's death as a tragedy but since they never met, he didn't have any personal feelings about him, only wanting to live up to the Robin name that Jason left behind.

Now I DO think that Tim did eventually end up hating Jason after Jason came back and tried to kill Tim and others multiple times but this post is specifically referring to the time before Jason returned from the grave.

And I guess I should make it clear that I've not read every single comic issue of Tim Drake ever so maybe there are moments that refute my claim that I just don't know about. I'm simply going off of issues that I have read and I've only read Tim's very early days as Robin.

Feel free to disagree and add on if you want.

[kiragecko]

One of the main reasons I love things like Reverse Robins AUs, is how they can help you figure out what's important to a character, and then look at those things through a fun house mirror to learn them better.

This is why my new favourite Reverse Robins concept is Tim, the second Robin, dying protecting a 4 year old Dick Grayson and his parents from the Court of Owls.

Part of why he dies is that Damian has made showing weakness so painful that he doesn't call for help. Dick leaves Gotham with his parents and gets another 5 years of happiness before they're killed by Tony Zucco. Tim becomes a Talon. He becomes active in Gotham when Jason is 16, and nobody knows who he is until Dick has become the newest Robin and the Court sentences Batman and Robin to death, a year and a half later.

Things that I find really satisfying about this idea:

It keeps the canon Dick+Tim 'Relationship Transformed by Kindness and Death' dynamic, but flips it. Instead of Dick being trapped in the place of his tragedy, surrounded by reminders, and Tim growing up silently watching him; we have Dick being whisked away from his tragedy, growing up surrounded by reminders of what's been saved.

It allows us to play with Jason's 'I Can't let Go of My Death and So I've Lost Myself and Everything I Loved' issues. Tim can't let go of his death, and it's his only link to himself and everything he's lost. He remembers saying 'The Flying Grayson's will fly again!' Keeping Dick alive is more important than avoiding being thrown back in the Labyrinth. Protecting Dick from the Court is his path back to his family.

It keeps the obsession and connection between Tim and Dick, instead of trying to convince the reader that Tim idealized Damian. I've struggled to translate Tim's motivation for becoming Robin in a reversed setting, and I can't make it work. This gives that motivation to Dick, instead, and allows us to explore how DICK would have been transformed by that one meeting. He didn't need love and affection in the same way Tim did. But I can see him holding on to the hope and heroism he saw, and instead of getting consumed by his rage when his parent's die, he's motivated to live up to Robin's legacy.

It gives a reason for my favourite reversed dynamic: instead of Bruce being broken by Jason's death, Bruce is convinced to step up by Tim's. In this universe, Bruce didn't choose either of his first 2 kids, and found it easier and safer to deny Tim even WAS his kid. (During Tim's tenure, Batman and Robin start patrol from the central Wayne Ent. Batcave, leaving the Manor to Damian, because it's easier than keeping Damian's vicious resentment and jealousy in line. Tim learns to mostly avoid the Waynes as civilians. Bruce deals with anything he sees, but doesn't confront the roots of the issues, and Tim loves being Robin but never feels particularly safe in the role.) Bruce 'got a kid killed' by holding him at arms length, and so, when Jason comes into his life and Bruce's attempts to find him a better place are stopped by corruption at every turn, Bruce chooses to truly become a parent.

One of the few things Tim remembers is his certainty that Robins aren't safe around Damian. This lets me keep Dick's canon struggles with Tim and Damian's conflicting needs. Both want to protect him, but Tim wants to protect him FROM Damian, and clingy baby Dick idolizes Tim, but NEEDS to hang off various parts of Damian for as much of the day as possible. Damian is drowning in guilt and wants to make Tim as comfortable as possible, but has committed to raising Dick. He can't let Tim stay between the 2 of them at all times.

It doesn't give as many hooks for Tim and Jason's relationship as I like. And I remain conflicted about whether Cass and Steph should come before Tim (to properly reverse canon) or after Tim (to make them contemporary with Jason, because he deserves to have contemporaries in AUs. Canon denied him). Duke is swapped with Babs, and I have fun thoughts about him, but that's a different post.

I don't think I can write this, but I want to see it!

[glitter-stained]

comments sections are bleh let me invade your inbox hello

ON HANAHAKI AU. and also in conjuction (is that the right word? i do not care about google i trust my brain!!) with the notif i got of you liking one of my art pieces. the original context of hanahaki has always felt Weird to me bcs its like ? giving people an obligation to reciprocatw your feelings. INSTEAD i subscribe to the idea of it being about extreme lack of communication and repression that results in a physical overflow—in this case still flowers suffocating u bcs cool aestheticw qnd also they carry this fucked up vibe to them idk man

ANYWAY i just think its SUPER fitting for jason in his familial relationships (ESP bruce) and i think each time he dies its just building more and more. like concealing this thing over and over again, not letting himself process what hes dealing with and express that hes desperate for validation and love + yk. all that trauma that people like to pretend has been resolved ...

not to mention. jason is a canonically suicidal character, at least passively, so the amount of value he puts on resolving the issue and curing himself is.. Lacking

i have no idea if any of that made sense i dont think my meds have kicked in yet and my brain is SCREAMING. Sorry for my godawful typing

Okay so

First of all I usually like Hanahaki BECAUSE you cannot make yourself love someone. So in general I like classic hanahaki because you get one of two situations:

1. Soft hurt/comfort where the person's self-esteem and past trauma stops them from realising the others actually love them back (I'm a soft bitch and will enjoy any variation of this trope)

OR

2. Tragedy when they try their best to make themselves love the sick person the way they need to, they love them but not in the way they need, and in the end it feels like their love is not enough no matter how much they love and they have to watch their loved one die because of it. Do you understand the tragedy it's so good!!!

So usually I like trad!hanahaki

However

I'm not kidding when I made the Jason hanahaki before seeing your ask i was already like wait but for jason what if it's not about feeling unloved. What if the very act of loving someone whose love will never satisfy you, not because of its nature but because you have such a different understanding of love and what it implies, is what hurts you. What if the reason you're sick is because you love someone who keeps hurting you, and you hate that you love them, and you can't help that you love them and you can't help that you hate that you love them, and this is what kills you.

And even death does not stop the love, just like the love can't stop itself from killing you.

So that's the OG thought for the AU

Honestly I really like your take on that, the relentlessness and desperation, and the suicidality -I can see him being so tired of the pain and at first wanting them to see and then realising they're not seeing it and getting used to it, getting comfortable in that cycle of pain and just waiting for the day it finally takes, until he has to actively conceal it because he's grown so used to his own personal garden of doom that someone finding out, and the emotional vulnerability that comes with it, is scarier than this.

Also loved your art because the version of Hanahaki death i like most is when the body horror is hardcore. Like, sure, die choking on flowers maybe but I need a whole rosier to sprout out of the ribcage, alien-style. And I think after Jason wakes up from his death, the plant is just there. I think he has a whole safehouse where he keeps his plants. He calls it the Greenhouse. It's beautiful, and the petals are bloodstained.

[bitimdrake]

What’s your opinion of that post going around saying that Jason is a character doomed by the narrative while Tim is doomed by his own flaws? I personally disagree with it because a lot of what happens to Tim is out of his control (like his friends and parents dying), and while Jason’s death was out of his control almost everything that happens to him after becoming Red Hood is due to his own flaws and lashing out at others. I’m curious about what you think :)

ohhh interesting. Because I am simultaneously like "yeah that post is neat and I agree with it!" and "yeah you're totally right and I agree with you!" I am simply agreeable :)

Hm. I think a significant portion of why the original post strikes something true is the meta context. Jason was doomed, not because of anything about him, but because he had the misfortune to be written in an era where the main Batman writer hated the idea of the Robin. He had a lead writer who kept trying to get him killed, and finally succeeded.

On the flip side, Tim is very protected by the narrative. DC knew damn well they could not let something bad happen to this Robin right after the death of the last one, lest the concept of Robin be ruined forever. So even as terrible things happen to the people around Tim, he himself is very very safe for the first twenty years of his history, and only really could be seriously hurt after there's a new Robin.

(Also, iirc, that post labels Tim-soomed-by-flaws specifically as a Greek tragedy and like. I'm no classics expert, but I don't think being a doomed-by-flaws Greek tragedy is mutually exclusive with having shitty things out of your control also happen to you.)

It also feels most true when specifically around Jason's Robin tenures. Jason was recruited by Bruce, largely did good, and died anyway because the universe was cruel. Tim, on the flip side, very much chose to be here despite having full access to a normal, safe life.

Also. idk. Tim does have hubris struck down by the gods energy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ This is most especially true in Red Robin, and especially especially under Nicieza's writing, where he may be informed by grief but is also a guy so infuriatingly convinced of his Rightness.

Onnn the other hand: everything you've said is also totally true!

Jason is a tragedy doomed by the narrative as Robin. But while he carries some of that energy even after returning, he is very much making his own mistakes as the Red Hood. There's a lens to look at it where Jason is narratively doomed because he never got to live a real life and is now stuck being against the main character (Bruce) who will inevitably prevail. But there is also the more Watsonian lens where Jason is absolutely doomed by his own flaws and causing his own destruction when he doesn't need to!!

[eta paragraph got lost here; re-adding] Red Hood Jason does a lot of really awful things that were entirely his decision. And he faces a lot of struggles that he very much could have avoided if it weren't for his own flaws. And though Tim is flawed and never died (and arguably isn't even really a tragedy?), the terrible things that have impacted him the most--the various deaths of people he loves--were fully out of his control, and sometimes not even narratively about him! (e.g. Steph fridged for Bruce; Bruce, Conner, Bart all killed/"killed" for their own stories, etc)

In the end, I guess it's a matter of perspective. Which vibes are strongest to you.

[qcomicsy]

I was going to reblog with a comment but that post is already super long. But so true ! Like the ninja assassin thing with Dick is a modern retcon something that would be a Tim Cass or Damian thing to do. But writing a flashback for an adult Dick in the 2000s would be weird. By the 1960s he was firmly in canon 18 and in college. How are you gonna go back to the era of goofy and be like this is Dick’s angsty teenage years involved getting turned into a vampire and fighting Bruce over dating Talia. It just doesn’t make sense with how Long comics keep going. 80 years of comics and he’s only what 28. Like it’s very hard to keep a consistent character when everyone wants to make Dick Jason and Bruce new characters every few decades

Absolutely!

My personal view about how they kept retconning Dick's personality as a child and his relationship with Bruce is that it's a mix of complex things and bullshit.

The complex things is yeah, Dick and Bruce had their share of problems when Dick was growing up. They did start bumping heads a lot, but it was more like "this kid is turning into a man and is starting to clash views with his father (who is already someone who's not easy to deal with)" and "that's the part where he starts to develop who he is as person" (I won't get much into that because I haven't read many comics regarding Dick transition from Robin from Batman & Robin to Robin from Titans until Nightwing in the pre-death of the family era.) than the borderline abusive and toxic relationship they started to introducing in the late 90's to early 2000's portrayals of them.

It's complex because after rebooting everything it's hard to introduce such a long and gradual process that took almost ten years of development that is Dick's emancipation not only from working with Bruce but also following his every step as boy wonder. Specially if we think about the huge fall out they had right after Jason died.

It's bullshit because they started with those retcons when we had that long and embarrassing period of Super-hero history (late 90's to early 2000's) where everyone was trying to make super-heroes popular again but following alongside with a palpable embarrassment and self-conscious shame regarding any silliness and/or whimsical side the superhero universe. Like "we're making superheroes stories but this is for adults, this ain't for children 😡😡". Nobody wanted to be the "60's Batman TV show everyone makes fun of" and everybody wanted to be Alan Moore.

We had all this writers who grow up reading "Death of the family", "The Killing Joke", "Batman Year one" add were dying to recreate the 80's dark period glory, even if they didn't had the same writing skills for that.

I mean hate the Killing Joke all you want (I know I do), it has a shit tone of good writing.

It's bullshit because everyone was still sore about how Batman turned into a joke in the 90's after that one movie and for some reason everyone blamed Robin. It's bullshit because comic books are always influenced by the popular media around them, and while 40's Batman had the American Way and American Family Values™ 🦅🦅🦅, 80's Batman has Scarface, Taxi Driver and long urban tragedies.... 90's have Die Hard and every extra power macho fantasy under the sun.

I mean... This was 90's Nightwing.

he's so big and so stupid and one day I'm gonna top h–*gunshots*

No one wanted to see "good father" Batman, hell no one wanted to see any emotional shit in comics? Emotions??? In my manly comics??? Miss me with that gay sit emotions is for girls 😡😡 I wanna see big buffy man making his enemies cry 🔥⛓️☠️💪☠️😡⛓️🪚🔧

So you reach early 2000, everyone kinda hates or is kinda embarrassed of Robin, Batman is a former shadow of the man and the father he used to be. But you still wanna introduce new readers to your character (Dick Grayson) that (for better or for worst) is loved but only by the people who already know him, you're still embarrassed of his silly origins and the whimsical part of it.

So what do you do?

Personally I think writers thought Dick had it too easy as Robin, personally I think they were obsessed about making it real, personally I think everyone was obssessed and trilled with the idea of being the next Tim Miller and making their one fresh real edge introduction of the boy wonder. Personally I think this is all the new 52 was absolutely on for the Batfamily.

Personally I believe (and this is more a optimistic take) some writers were creatively trying to tie Dick's anger issues as Nightwing to his origins as Robin.

You have this chance of one in million (at te time) to reintroduce Nightwing (reintroduce Robin), now you can make it as real as gritty and as edge as you want. You can make it Robin cool again, you can introduce in a way that will sell well the dark story you where preparing for this character. And you also can deny any father and son relationship he could had have with Bruce Wayne and keep the big beef strong man without feelings reputation that people have been manufacturing by choice into Batman from ten years by now.

And what is more dark and character building than an abusive father?

I think writers thought that making Bruce abusive towards Dick and Dick resentful towards Bruce was the best way to launch this new universe as realistic and grittier. Not only making Dick's Robin introduction (and origin) more "real" but also separating Bruce even more from a emotional and father like figure that for some reason some writers (and fans!) despised to much.

Killing so many birds with one stone might as well call yourself David from the Bible.

And they were so certain this direction would be a success that the just notice their mistake now.

Anyways... A load of bullshit.

I personally don't mind Dick's Robin having anger issues, I think it's a natural progression from his first real serious introduction from back in the 80's, I also think it adds more to his character tying up his first trauma along with a long life of others and the result of having to deal with a frustrating job (that is vigilantism is) since literally ever. I like the idea that the perfect Robin wasn't perfect all the time and he also had (and has) other side of his personality that isn't as nice or likeable as it should and that's a thing he consciously have to work on as a person since he was a child.

However I also think writers did took to far sometimes and Dick history and specially his relationship with Bruce suffered from it. And I also agree that if everyone tries to reboot, retcon and fucking "subvert" a character every fucking ten years you won't even have a fucking consistent character to begin with (gestures vaguely to Jason Todd, Deadpool and now poor fuckin Damian and their wreck of comic book history).

[lazuliquetzal]

thoughts on time travelling Jason?

SOBBING I HAD TO REWRITE THIS BECAUSE TUMBLR ATE MY ANSWER

anyway anon I spent a very long shower brainstorming concepts but then when I stepped out I realized: it's just Two Dead Birds by InsaneTrollLogic. Then I spent two hours trying to come up with something original, but then failed, because all of what I came up with was TDB by InsaneTrollLogic. Easily my favorite time travel Batfam fic (I have read a lot).

But anyway, part of the reason I like it so much is because it sidesteps the inherent tragedy of "look at yourself back before you died!" which, while really fun and cathartic, IS SO FUCKED UP ARE YOU KIDDING ME. Jason literally died and you make him confront a happier version of himself that he can never return to? A version of himself he fundamentally cannot relate to? A version of himself that has all the love and support, and who he will never see in the mirror again? Jason time traveling and saving his past self from the Joker is a super straightforward and dramatic plot line, so I get why it's the obvious choice but god, the implications are so depressing.

TDB avoids that by taking place post-Ethiopia. Instead of saying "the way Jason fixes his past is by preventing the trauma altogether," it says, "the way Jason fixes his past is by guiding his past self back into the arms of a healthy support system." Which is exactly the kind of hopeful growth-wish-fulfillment thing I'd personally want in a Jason Todd Time Travel fic. (Anon, I swear I genuinely tried to come up with an original idea for this but everything just boiled back to "TDB is already what I want out of a Jason Todd time travel fic.")

Speaking in more general terms, the interaction of a later-stage, semi-rehabilitated Jason versus a fresh-out-of-the-Pit Jason is really interesting to me. Part of the general appeal of time travel is getting to contrast a character at the beginning of their arc with them in the middle, or at the end--it really showcases character growth. And in Jason's case, I'd want this to be the comparison: we're not comparing the before and after of an unfair tragedy, we're showcasing at his long and difficult journey of reinventing himself.

And I think it'd be a fun push for Jason to confront his initial hurt and anger in the form of his younger self, and realize, "you know what, Red Hood isn't just about giving my daddy issues a body count. I'm going to construct something better." That's what a time travel fic is about, babey.

[azol-otl]

So I was rewatching season two of Young Justice (because I only kept up with the show while it was on television and it not existing for years meant I didn’t bother going back to it) and it seems like I still share my opinion from way back then.

Why did they use Tim and Cassie?

Like, don’t get me wrong it makes sense that a show called Young Justice would have them, but the show was already nothing like the comic. YJ!Superboy is nothing like comics!Superboy and he’s the only core member of the actual Young Justice comics to have been in season one. The show’s core cast has two gen one sidekicks, a gen three sidekick, a gen four (??? things get muddled as hell in the 2000s), a gen five sidekick, and a bit villainess. They are literally an elseworld.

Not only that, but Tim and Cassie were...pretty much non-characters during the season. Despite the time given to them, they weren’t very important to the overall arc and were wasted potential.

But you know who wouldn’t have been? Jason and Donna.

We already know the characters exist in universe. We see Jason’s memorial.

This is an unnecessary aside, but I am so sick of Jason’s death being the only thing we see of him in elseworlds. Even the ones where he’s alive they’re always like “And he’s evil because he was poor!” Like bitch do you not understand how to create a tragedy? You don’t just give us sad events you have to get us attached to the character first. This is a cartoon! It has a much wider audience than a comic! They won’t know major comic references because they are not informed! Why would the grotto scene work if we never met these people! Get us attached and then kill them off!

 But there is no point in knowing these characters exist if you don’t use them (or at least cameo them if they’re really niche), but with these two specifically they could have done something really interesting.

 They could have been Red Herrings.

Jason and Donna have both died in the comics. Their deaths were majorly important events to their respective IP’s (Batman and Titans). Not only that, but we already have Bart coming back in time to save a third person who had famously died, Barry Allen.

We know that Bart came back in time to stop the apocalypse. We know something happens to Jaime that turns him evil. We’re led to believe that Artemis dies (something that rocks Bart to the core because she didn’t die in his timeline). So we would suspect that Jason and Donna would be the first in line to die.

The Young Justice writers could even play into their reputations with what’s already present. They could have made Jason and Jaime (who are the same age in this universe) close friends. This could be used to give Bart anxiety because Jason, again, famously gets murdered as Robin and Jaime is supposed to become evil.

Hell if they made Jason take Tim’s place during the infiltration there would have been some serious investment when original Roy purposefully explodes shit and they fight Black Beetle because one of these characters has a history of being murdered. 

I would also like to push my YJ crackship of BlueJay (Jaime/Jason) because I am trash and will forever push Jason being queer.

Or with Mongul (who Jason has a major story with) you can push Jason almost dying again. And it would be through betrayal from someone who’s supposed to love you, just like in DitF. (Imagine the scene where Nightwing finds the batarang when you know that there’s a real possibility that this is how Jason dies in this universe).

On Donna’s end you can have her take more and more responsibilities after Artemis dies and she starts becoming more of Dick’s second in command with a penchant of shoving herself in front of attacks because she can survive things that others cannot (because Artemis “died” via stabbing and if you had Donna there, whoo boy that’s some guilt). So when the Bialya mission occurs and it’s the all-girls team (the all-girls team with two very squishy humans Barbara and Karen), they could just bring in a larger threat than the henchmen that are there then hey there’s more conflict and fear for comic fans. And again in Warworld where she can be fighting against Mongul and guess what there’s another squishy human there, Roy. Instead of being immediately knocked out she could have taken a blow for Roy.

Side Note: When Nightwing explains why it’s an all girl’s team being sent to Bialya (way to assume everyone’s straight Dick), Donna can have a snarky line like, “And Robin isn’t here why?”

For extra extra angst you can have both Jason and Donna reacting negatively to Artemis’ “death” and reaching out to Wally because of it. Jason because both he and Artemis are from the same place and have a similar prickliness that comes from how they were raised (we could have had an Artemis-Jason sibling bond and it would have been great), and his fury that someone who “got out” still died a violent death. Donna because of the guilt of Artemis dying but also because she’d be closer in age to Wally and Artemis so making them be friends just makes sense. And by putting more of the focus on their grief and Wally’s guilt the writers could expertly tie Wally into the “could possibly die” camp without making the audience worry about it.

And with everything that happens. With the two obvious targets somehow alive throughout the season, they still “kill” Wally West. All of the foreshadowing about sacrifice. All of the remarks about not being reckless (because this is still DC and they love blaming Jason’s death on himself). All of the near-deaths, it ends up being the person you don’t expect and it hits harder because of it (except for all the people who watched JLU who had pinged Wally dying pretty early on in the season) .

But yeah. If they were going through the trouble of confirming these characters exist, why not use them for the narrative?

[martyrbat]

how would you change tim's character to make him ""better""

(in reference to this post (i think?))

ooh! this is a very interesting thing to ask and deserves an answer for when i can actually think on it more thoroughly but for now:

firstly, for the record, i fully agree with this post about how steph should been the third robin

but okay. i think a key element to any post!jason robin is actually exploring Bruce's grief and how its effecting him. i understand its a comic so they have to keep the action flowing instead of indulging entirely in the vast and deep topic of grief (unfortunately) but i think by actually acknowledging jasons death they can shape the narrative and have it be high stakes and a continuing arc!

bruce couldn't save his own son - how is he trusted to save someone else's? how is he going to save a city and stop evil when he couldn't for the person that mattered most? how he's once again fighting in hopes to prevent someone else from experiencing the same loss but it doesnt take away his pain.

especially with bruces complex to save everyone. anyone dies or has a tragedy occur to them and bruce blames himself every single time. he believes should of (and could of) done something - even if it was impossible. so tie that with how hes supposed to always be prepared, always save the day, always be that dark knight and hero? but failing to the extent that his own child is dead? how jason died hoping bruce would burst in there and save him and then died as a hero when he should of been living as a boy? him being responsible by introducing jason to thie vigilant lifestyle and how his memory lives on in everything bruce does.

show me that guilt! that insecurity and how he still loves jason!! this man hung onto the death of his parents this obsessively, itll be even worse for his child! i literally cannot stress this element enough, he needs to grieve. its gonna be messy and complex and difficult. he's never going to stop grieving to an extent, you never do.

NOW. onto tim (unfortunately). each robin has been a reflection of Bruce's characteristics and sides to its most extreme. if it has to be tim, personally ill go more for tim being more like bruce's detached side. countless nights staring at a screen or paperwork, not knowing social cues as well, having a tendency to isolate when overwhelmed or to avoid reality, paranoid. i think of this panel immediately:

[ID: Alfred scolding Tim after he punched Damian for falsely believing he was attacking Alfred. Alfred says, "He was stopping me from falling. The poor lad is afraid. He needs comfort... Not a fist in the face. It's all very well being blessed with fierce intelligence. But that doesn't mean a thing if it's not tempered by compassion, Timothy. Mr. Wayne knows that." END ID]

not careless, not heartless - to be a robin, you have to care and want to help people. but how you help and style is very different. his compassion being linked to 'the greater picture' vs jason who was so much for the actual people and individuals and "small details' that often get forgotten about in said general picture. jason focused on the brush strokes that were the people of gotham while tim would go for gotham as a whole. what would be the best long term effective? what would it take to reach it?

i think by making tim more logic based in his compassion and is a good way to challenge bruce in a way that all the robins have before. its how that dynamic works, there has to be chemistry and that balance.

let him see this kid as a reflection of why he cant deprive himself from his heart despite how much it hurts seeing another little boy running around in a yellow cape when it should be his little boy still. that it hurts because he had someone to hurt over. have bruce mourning and grieving and impacted by jason's death (canonly he was rougher as batman because of it/emotionally withdrawn more) while also scared shitless that this kid is going to be next and he'll be making another father go through the same lost hes going through

it also allows tim more room for character development and to have a distinct factor instead of his cherry picked perfect traits and 'flaws' from the others before him. its still robin but hes so different from jason and as a result bruce has to actually confront his feelings and how jason taught/reminded him that he cant forget the people while waiting around and planning for the perfect big picture. that without the people, who cares if the city is saved? it acknowledges jasons life and death and honours jason beyond a perserved costume:

[ID: Robin telling Jason he's gotten too emotionally involved with a case due to not picking up on obvious signs of their convict, Felipe, being on cocaine. The next panel is Batman and Robin on a stakeout. Batman's internal narration reads, "Over the next three days we have a dozen opportunities to bust Felipe holding. But we hold off. I want to take out a part of the Senior Garzonas' operation when Felipe takes his fall. Robin doesn't like this idea." Additional note is that because of this, Felipe had time to intimidated the woman he raped into killing herself. END ID]

i know a lot of this is about jason and bruce instead but you cant ignore him or pretend he didnt happen. jason's death is was what gave birth to tim's existence (and capitalism but yknow). its going to impact him and the robin dynamic forever. its going to change bruce forever because he didn't want another robin. he didnt want someone else's kid. he wanted his son who was six feet under

people talk how tim is the robin that chose to be robin and to involve himself instead of the circumstances causing it. go heavier into that. its why he clings to that title and is an asshole to damian - because he thinks without that mantel - hes nothing. have him insecure and obsessive over it. have the obvious distance between him and how bruce was with the robins before him because they were his actual sons. you can love and care about someone but not see them as family. ESPECIALLY with tim's parents - who did love him but were still neglectful and how that'll make him insecure/grow a complex.

have tim having to learn to trust others and how to be vulnerable but still struggle. have him learning to not isolate as much and snapping at others when he does. have the conflict of tim saying its a sacrifice to help the greater good. hell, have him lean more into the mad scientist and invention route even, he did cloned his best fucking friend. i dont care what, just give him SOME personality beyond batman's lapdog and always being so perfectly imperfect that his few 'flaws' are polished and excused.

[val-el]

this is going to be mostly meta and analysis based on my own read-throughs of jason, but it's something i've been thinking about a lot lately.

there's so much to his character from before he died, and so many writers in DC and some people in the fandom tend to ignore it and focus on the fact that he died and came back. when there's so much more than that. and because DC rarely explores that themselves, you have to go back and read it.

i know we talk about how jason's tragedy is coming back from the dead a lot, which it is! but there's another layer to the fact that his story deals with cycles of crime and poverty, and the fact that he went from wanting to break that cycle to being the red fucking hood is also part of the tragedy.

part of the tragedy is dying a hero, dying to protect someone you love, and being okay with that. and then you get brought back and become part of the cycle you had already broken.

jason was raised in crime. he may not have been actively participating in it, but it was still prominent in his life. before dc retconned it, willis was working as a henchmen in order to support his family. it paid medical bills, it put food on the table, and crime never stopped. he'd always have a job. he wasn't an abusive asshole, and he wasn't absent. he was doing his fucking best with what he had. and i'm not going to get into the gritty details of what does and doesn't make crimes justified -- this is just important background to how jason views crime as a whole. after willis died, catherine turned to crime, too -- because she was sick, and self-medicated via drugs, and eventually that killed her instead of her sickness.

this leads to jason boosting cars, which he talks about with bruce, saying; "I don't want to be no crook. I just boost what I gotta to survive." (this is in his post-crisis origin, starting in Batman 1940 #408). even when bruce sends him to a boarding school, crime follows him there, because the principal is running a crime ring out of it.

and because jason was raised where crime was necessary, this affects his relationship with being robin, and even his relationship with bruce as a kid. when bruce takes him in, it's jason being told that he doesn't have to turn to crime anymore.

however.

bruce views crime as something that needs to be stopped and destroyed, and jason sees crime as something necessary, and this is what causes them to butt heads. it's this difference in views that make things tense between batman and robin. and when jason becomes red hood, he doesn't stop the crime, he controls it, makes sure that kids aren't getting sold drugs and parents that are trying to put food on the table continue to do so, and punishes assholes like black mask.

and there's a lot of controversy around his actions as red hood, but at the end of the day, he's doing what he thinks is good for gotham. him and bruce, ultimately, have the same goal. because they were batman and robin. but they view the world differently, enough so that that wedge will always be there. and i think taking away bruce's fortune and putting him on the streets of gotham might make him finally see things from jason's point of view, and that can start actually improving their relationship.

because jason's already meeting him halfway with the rubber bullets and leash on killing, but bruce still doesn't understand.

anyway. jason broke the crime cycle when he became robin, when he died a hero. coming back repaired the cycle, in a way. crime is familiar to jason, and necessary, and so being red hood wasn't just about the joker and his death and lack of being avenged. it was also about deciding batman wasn't what gotham needed and stepping up to fill in the gaps the bat symbol leaves.

thank you and good night.

being so serious when i say people shouldn't be allowed to talk about red hood jason until they've read his appearances as robin

[koala2055]

Yay opinion time:

Volume 2 kind of sucked.

Like sure, it had some great parts and I guess the plot worked, but it could have been so much better.

Eddie's death made no sense. I get that they wanted him to have a resolution of him not running for once and shit, but it didn't make sense for him to die because of it.

a) Steve survived numerous demobat wounds

b) All the bats died literally seconds later

It really didn't do much for Dustin's character growth either, tbh. Like sure it encouraged him to be responsible for the others but like really, Dustin was doing that anyway.

And Eddie had so much potential. The fandom loves him. There were so many things they could have done with his character, but no, they stuck to their formula and killed the new guy.

Which brings me to Max.

In that brief moment where I believed Max was dead, it hurt. Especially with Lucas and El there, unable to do anything about it.

It was powerful. And exactly what the group would have needed to push themselves forward.

I'm not saying I wanted Max to die. She was a brilliant character and this season she had so much development. But it would have been an amazing plot point, so much better than killing Eddie. It would show us that there are actually stakes here, that the characters aren't indefinitely shielded by plot armor.

As for the other deaths... I'll be honest I barely even realized Jason died. It was so fast and it really didn't mean anything.

Brenner's death was painted as a tragedy and I fucking hate that. I suppose I could understand his apparent change of heart with the whole Nina project, but after he trapped Eleven again- I don't understand how they were trying to paint him as a sympathetic character or whatever they were doing. That man was a monster and he deserved to die.

The cast and advertising for volume 2 promised deaths and we just... didn't get any good ones.

Which brings us to the other part of the false advertising, the queerbaiting.

There were three super strong queer ships after volume 1, and they were byler, steddie, and ronance.

Now I never put too much faith into ronance, it didn't seem like it made sense since they just introduced a love interest for Robin, so that wasn't too significant.

Steddie had a lot of support. And it definitely seemed like a possibility. But assuming their plan was to kill off Eddie anyway, I'll let it slide.

Byler.

The level of teasing and hinting at Byler from the cast was unprecedented.

And what happened?

Almost nothing.

Sure, we get more hints that Will is queer, but nothing is explicitly said.

And worst of all, they used Will's unrequited love to further mileven. That made me furious.

Complete queerbait.

I don't know why I expected better.

And many people have pointed out the problems with Mike's love monologue to El, so I'm not going to bother. It was stupid.

Mileven wasn't terrible at all, it had genuine build up and wasn't just romance for the sake of romance. But claiming that Mike fell in love with her the day they met is just- stupid. And making El need that speech to motivate her instead of just finding the strength within herself was a bit meh.

I'll probably make another post with the things that they did right, but for now I'm done ranting.

[bigskydreaming]

Brain topic du jour is reflecting on the frankly weird as fuck pattern in Dick’s life where....he barely ever experiences losses one at a time. Most of the loss he’s experienced in his life is compounded by him losing multiple people and other elements of stability all at the exact same time.

1) When his parents died, in some continuities this is coupled with him losing his extended family of his aunt and cousin as well, with his uncle left comatose and on life support for years before he eventually died as well. Even in continuities without Richard, Karla and John, the loss of Dick’s parents is compounded by the additional loss of his circus family in the sense that he was taken away from them by the state and their constant reassuring presences in his life were no longer comforts he was able to rely on.

2) When Jason died, Dick didn’t just lose his brother, as the tragedy was compounded by Bruce’s reaction. I’ll never be able to gloss over the effects of NTT #55, personally, because I think its too key to Dick’s entire characterization and the specific direction his character took in the years that followed this, to like....disregard that Bruce however unintentionally, while lost in his own grief, added to Dick’s own sense of loss for Jason in probably the worst way possible. As by kicking Dick out and telling him to leave his keys, Dick - having no way to know or guess that they’d ever reconcile, just like he never actually went back to the circus being a regular presence for him - to Dick, this was in essence the equivalent of his childhood tragedy all over again. Losing not just one family member, but his whole family in one sweep, and all the comforts and stability offered by a home he was forced to leave. Even Dick’s contact with Alfred was minimal for awhile, because why would the guy who basically JUST saw history repeat itself and was like, well I know how THIS tends to play out.....why would he think that if Alfred felt forced to actually choose between his loyalties to Bruce and Dick respectively, that Alfred would pick Dick over the man he’d known and raised from childhood himself?

3) Titans Hunt. I know I harp on this one a lot, but you can’t deny that it fits the pattern. Dick didn’t just lose one friend and teammate.....he lost Joey, he lost a good four or five lesser known Titans who nevertheless were people he viewed as directly HIS responsibility to keep safe. With these tragedies compounded by the fact that though comics played out a lot more slowburn and extended stories over years back then, like.....the aftermath of Titans Hunt was still everpresent and directly died into Dick’s reactions and emotions during the Mirage storyline and everything that happened with the failed wedding and his breakup with Kory AND the fact that he was literally forced off the team he’d basically founded, by the government agency that took over the team and appointed Roy as its leader in his stead.

3) Graduation Day. The second time the Titans disbanded it was again not due to a singular loss, because Dick didn’t just lose Donna at this point, but also Lilith died in the exact same story and though Lilith is criminally underused, like, she’s also one of Dick’s oldest friends. She was literally the first Titan to join after the original five. This then led into the Outsiders era, where Dick was shown to still be reeling from the losses of this story for an extended period of time, and in a fun parallel to the Titans Hunt aftermath, Dick was also ousted from his leadership of THIS team by essentially a vote of no confidence by his teammates (and uh, Bruce too, literally).

4) The Blockbuster arc. Where Dick’s emotional state was due to a continued string of multiple losses. He lost his apartment building and almost every one of the neighbors he’d built a community out of, as we’d been shown him actively involving himself in their lives and vice versa for YEARS before this point. Then he lost his circus, his childhood home, burned to the ground and with dozens of deaths - both spectators and actual performers Dick had known and loved as a child. Then he lost his relationship with Barbara, his sense of self-security and autonomy to Tarantula, he lost another teen vigilante who died in his colors, the mantle HE’D created, when Stephanie was believed dead in War Games, and it all culminated in losing the city he’d invested himself in as his CHOSEN home, the place he dedicated himself to protecting, when Chemo blew it up.

Oh just for the record - my nonexistent passport to the magical kingdom of Narnia for a fic that raises the point when bringing up Tim’s losses in the Red Robin era, that like.....ALL of the above happened at literally the EXACT SAME TIME as all Tim’s referenced losses occurred. Obviously Steph meant more to Tim than Dick on a personal level, but I also included her largely as an anchor point to the timeline, to show how that death, and not long after that Jack Drake’s and then Superboy’s.... occurred right smack in the middle of one of the absolute WORST periods of Dick’s life. To be clear, I don’t intend this to suggest that no actually, Dick had it harder than Tim - nah. 

No thank you. Hard pass. I hate that sort of thing even in support of my own faves over other characters. No, instead the thing I’d love to see explored more is just in light of the SPECIFIC angle fics take here - that Dick’s actions while Bruce was lost in time showed an obliviousness to everything Tim had lost lately - for literally ANYONE to bring up or introduce into the timeline here an awareness of everything Dick had lost AT THE EXACT SAME TIME PERIOD. To establish that actually, Dick didn’t just ‘not understand what it was like’ - rather, its more accurate to say that nobody in universe around this time ever shows an awareness of Dick’s own losses and says oh wait, that doesn’t track then. 

Because obviously, with this stuff put in proper perspective, Dick understands VERY VERY WELL the exact thing we’re accusing him of not understanding by being oblivious to Tim’s losses that he’s not actually oblivious to because he tries to talk to Tim about them all the time, while meanwhile its everyone else who has absolutely mum to say about the fact that Dick’s emotional state is compromised to hell and back at this point, not JUST because of losing Bruce, but also because *gestures wildly* literally ALL OF THE ABOVE in the exact same time frame Tim’s extended losses happened in.

And okay I am going to indulge in slight tiny itty bitty pettiness and point out my ire that so many fics set during this time tend to recite listicles of Tim’s losses, with Steph, Kon and Jack Drake at the very top of said list....while paying no attention whatsoever to the fact that STEPH WAS LITERALLY BACK BY THE TIME THE RED ROBIN SERIES HAPPENED. She’s LITERALLY a person Dick sends to check up on Tim after Tim turns Dick away when he tries himself. How are you gonna stress the impact Steph’s loss has on Tim when you’re not even acknowledging STEPH’S RIGHT HERE IN THE EXACT SPECIFIC CANON STORY YOU’RE CITING??? I just. afhioskhflafhlafhklfahlfa. 

And not to put too fine a point on it, but you know who ELSE was also back at the same time? CONNOR. Superboy LITERALLY was already back to life by the time the Red Robin series even began. Like, the issue where a resurrected Kon and Cassie (Wonder Girl) have a heart to heart about the fact that Tim and Cassie ‘connected’ during his absence and Connor stresses that this doesn’t bother him or make him feel negatively towards either of them at all, because hello, he was literally dead at the time, why would he mind that two of the people he loves most in the world sought comfort in each other? Yeah, that issue? Literally came out BEFORE Tim even became Red Robin.

I MEAN. I’m just saying, when people constantly take shots at Dick’s choices during this period because of how much Tim had lost before Bruce already, in order to shift focus away from the fact that Dick lost Bruce every bit as much as Tim did......and you repeatedly emphasize the SAME three names as the focal point of Tim’s losses while paying no acknowledgment whatsoever to everything Dick lost at the exact same time Tim lost these three.....it quickly becomes kiiiiiiinda relevant in my opinion THAT TWO OF THE THREE NAMES CONSTANTLY MENTIONED AS BEING TIM’S LOSSES ARE NO LONGER EVEN LOST BY THE TIME THE SUBJECT COMES UP. Again, I’m just saying! Pettily, mind you! I am aware of the pettiness, I just beg awareness of like *again gesticulates wildly at all of the above* ALL THAT!

LOL.

But I digress.

5) When Bruce was believed dead while he was lost in the timestream. Again, Dick didn’t just lose the father who had been the only parent in his life for almost TWICE as long as his first parents......this was coupled with the loss of numerous other sources of stability in Dick’s life. There’s the matter of his personal sense of identity and self-expression....Dick FOUGHT against becoming Batman, trying to handle Gotham in Bruce’s absence as Nightwing for as long as he could, because he knew being Batman was very much NOT going to be good for him. He put so much of himself into building his identity as Nightwing, establishing himself in that role, that self-image, that yes, I maintain it was an actual LOSS for Dick, to feel like he had no choice but to give that up and everything it meant to him and his own life, in order to essentially live Bruce’s life for him in his absence. 

Because it wasn’t just being Batman that Dick was struggling with at this time....he also had to act as the patriarch to the Wayne family, essentially raise Bruce’s ten year old son, step into Bruce’s old role in Wayne Enterprises, all while getting no acknowledgment for any of this, for literally LIVING his father’s life instead of the life Dick had worked so hard to build for HIMSELF....because of course Dick’s actions and struggles couldn’t even be advertised beyond the family and close friends, because the whole point of him doing all this was so that nobody else even realized that Bruce wasn’t really there anymore. Dick didn’t just assume Bruce’s responsibilities. Dick assumed Bruce’s life, so thoroughly that most people didn’t even put together that Bruce was ‘dead,’ between Dick handling Bruce’s actual roles and responsibilities while Hush made public appearances as him. 

Like, when you’re living someone else’s life so completely that nobody can tell they’re even gone....how on earth does that leave any time or space for you to have ANY kind of life of your OWN, y’know? Not to mention the fact that like in so many times previously....all this meant that Dick couldn’t even afford to let his grief for his own losses show, because he wasn’t supposed to be grieving any losses in the first place, that was the whole point of the con!

Additionally, couple this with the fact that throughout this time period, Dick didn’t have Tim to lean on at all, because it was never that Dick kicked Tim out or neglected him or didn’t care....he’d actively stressed how much he needed Tim, because the partner Tim was convinced Dick chose ‘over’ him - Dick was the first one to admit back then that he DIDN’T trust Damian yet, couldn’t afford to, because he was all too aware that Damian didn’t give a fuck about him yet and couldn’t be guaranteed to step in to have Dick’s back - because that required mutual trust that Dick literally just hadn’t had time to build yet. And add to THAT the fact that during this time, Jason was actively antagonizing the family and Dick in particular at every turn, trying to bring them all down and basically write over what all of them saw as Bruce’s legacy with Jason’s own version of what he thought that should look like.

Also also, take into account that unlike how often we see fanon depict Dick as just too stubborn or proud to ask for help, there’s the fact that he actually had very few avenues TO ask for help! As already established, he DID ask Tim for help. Not like Jason was an option at this time, and Dick’s friends weren’t actually just sitting waiting in the wings and groaning about the fact that Dick was trying to do all of this solo....nah, they kinda had their own problems, which Dick was all too aware of?

Like the fact that in the wake of Final Crisis, it wasn’t just Bruce that was believed lost. Many other key Leaguers like Martian Manhunter were dead or lost, with others struggling to fill the gaps left in their absence. Cry For Justice happened right after Final Crisis too....that story where Lian was murdered? So it wasn’t like Dick was remotely going to try leaning on Roy when Roy had just lost his freaking DAUGHTER and very much wasn’t handling it well (and not to overshadow Roy’s loss at ALL, but please let’s not act like Dick - who had literally been the person to put a baby Lian in Roy’s arms for the first time and had known that girl for pretty much her entire life - like, it shouldn’t be used to detract from Roy’s loss at all, but it shouldn’t have to, to just acknowledge that Lian’s loss right at this exact time was painful as fuck to Dick, who’d loved his niece like crazy.)

The pattern of compounding, concurrent losses in Dick’s life. I’m just saying. Its there.

And it extends into the New 52 as well, where Forever Evil came right on the heels of Dick losing his circus in THIS continuity to the Joker, just as a way to hurt him in Death of A Family. And with the aftermath of Forever Evil and Dick’s own literal death, being like....the complete loss of Dick’s entire life, even though he was revived quickly. That didn’t mean he got to live HIS life though, since Dick Grayson was believed dead and he was told had to remain so, so its like fuck whatever he actually wanted to do as he went about on the Spyral mission aka something that pinched his own sense of morality and personal agenda at every turn and was kinda the last thing a therapist would recommend for a trauma recovery period, lol. And like, for all the focus that was paid to how Dick’s family were hurt because they believed they’d lost him when he was actually alive, let’s not forget that for all intents and purposes, Dick DID lose his family in the wake of his resurrection because he was flat out told over and over that due to what ‘he’d LET happen to him’ he was an ACTIVE danger to them, and thus wasn’t allowed by Bruce to contact any of them or lean on them to any degree, until Bruce got amnesia and stopped blocking Dick’s pleas to return home by just not being there to pick up the secret phone line at all. 

(And omg, the obliviousness that just EMANATES off the hot takes that Dick had a ‘choice’ in all this and he still CHOSE to do what Bruce told him....like. LOLOL, stop being pissy about me bringing up the term abuse apologism when its literal victim blaming to paint the guy who had to be beaten into ‘agreeing’ to the Spyral mission in the immediate wake of the trauma of DYING, all while his father vocally blamed him for his own suffering and the ‘threat’ he now posed to his family, keying directly into the guilt complex Bruce knows damn well is at the core of most of Dick’s motivations.....fucking please. There’s no choice in all that. That’s active emotional, mental and physical abuse aimed at directly manipulating Dick’s actions, delivered by the guy who knows Dick best in the world and whose approval - particularly when Dick is at absolute rock bottom aka Current Location - matters more to Dick than just about anything because his sense of self-worth has more in common with dog shit than actual dog shit does. Or something. Idk. That analogy got away from me. But like. You get it.)

BUT. I. DIE. GRESS. (I guess).

Aaaaaaanyway, so yeah! That repeating pattern throughout Dick’s life of ‘loss? What loss (singular)? My losses only come in groups, lolol, fuuuuuun’ - mmmm. Yeah. So that’s what’s on MY brain right now. Thoughts?

[our-happygirl500-fan]

You know the whole Baterang to the throat thing that causes a lot of discussion in the fandom? I think Bruce might not have been aiming for the throat

It ricochets

This point in comics Bruce has been through a ringer Steph's died, Barbara and Jim have left, Leslie betrayed him and he's had to send Cass and Tim away and now Jason is back but for revenge so Bruce isn’t at his best and I think Bruce threw the Baterang in a moment of panic and either over or undershot which ended up with well that.

This moment causes a lot of debate but I don't see it as “Bruce harming Jason to save the joker” the way a lot of fics paint it I see it more as he'd been aiming for Jason's arm or something to disarm him but overshot and it’s kind of like a symbolism of their relationship. 

 Which is basically Bruce takes an action to stop Jason from going down a path that he thinks will end up hurting Jason, but ends up hurting Jason in the long-run.

Like when he discussed taking away robin from Jason (because he thought Jason needed time to deal with issues that were becoming more prevalent) which only ended up making Jason feel insecure about his position in the Wayne household, contributing to why he so desperately pursued a stable parental relationship in his biological mother.

Bruce knows that if he gives in and kills the Joker he'll never stop killing we've seen timelines that prove that and I think Bruce also thinks the same of Jason that if Jason kills the Joker he won't stop at all so it’s not that he’s saving the Joker but that he’s trying to save Jason but Bruce ultimately misunderstands Jason’s needs and winds up hurting him.

Bruce is trying to save Jason from what he sees as a downwards spiral, but he ends up hurting him not just emotionally, but physically, and in the most extreme way possible. It's like an even darker echo of how trying to bench him as Robin led to his death.

Bruce has spent YEARS haunted by the memory of Jason’s death his death fundamentally changed Bruce's entire character Alfred said that Jason's death affected Bruce more than his own parents death.

In Underworld Unleashed it's revealed that his greatest desire is to have Jason back, in Hush he talks about how he wanted to put Jason in the Lazarus Pit and how he believes Jason knew he always loved him, and in As The Crow Flies we learn that his greatest fear is Jason coming back as an enemy and then in Under the Red Hood he gets Jason back (his greatest desire) but as an antagonist (his greatest fear) and moreover his belief that Jason 'knew' he loved him is WRONG.

Jason's insecurities from before his death combined with the perceived betrayal of Bruce not avenging him have led Jason to the point where he genuinely believes Bruce doesn't care, and in Jason's eyes, killing the joker is the only way Bruce can prove that he does but instead, in that moment, Bruce's attempt to diffuse the situation backfires.

Bruce misunderstands what Jason needs in that moment like he misunderstood what Jason needed at the start of Death in the Family it's just the ultimate representation of their constant emotional feedback loop. They trap themselves in a cycle of fighting because Jason can't read how Bruce really feels and Bruce can't read what Jason really needs and in that moment both those things are true, with Jason not seeing that Bruce truly cares anymore, and Bruce not knowing how to properly deescalate the situation and show Jason that he still cares.

It's extremely easy to read the batatrang throw as purposeful even though I wholly believe it was accidental but if that moment was explored more, I'm positive that Jason would believe it wasn't an accident, and would view it as proof of his already held view that Bruce doesn't love him anymore after all, that could have killed him, symbolically disowning him in the most extreme way possible.

Heck in Jason's appearance in Green Arrow (2001) Bruce had thought Jason might have died again! Before Jason turned up to mess with Mia.

The thing that's tragic about Jason that actually leads to a lot of his own suffering is that Jason doesn't really know what a healthy relationship looks like so I'm not sure when his actual 'last straw' would be.

Jason is the kind of person who sees love and acceptance as entirely circumstantial. He believes he must /earn/ love and acceptance, i.e. by being Robin, rather than it being inherently given.

A huge piece of understanding Robin Jason is understanding how much he lacked proper support systems back then. School was his only connection to his kids his age, and he didn't benefit much from that connection, his life was essentially: manor, school, Robin, repeat.

Jason loved school, but his school life was also pretty depressing. Jason kept to himself, he didn't have the time to participate in extracurriculars even when he wanted to and his peers didn't view him very positively. Jason was also really isolated from the rest of the hero community, there was his stint with the Titans, but it was pretty brief. He was also penpals with Kid Devil, but for the most part, he just had Batman.

The lack of support is actually one of the reasons I give for Jason and Steph dying in universe since they were the two Robins without support systems outside of Gotham. When Bruce was a jerk Dick and Tim could be like 'fine I'm going to go hang out with the Teen Titans or Young Justice' but Jason and Steph could only be like 'oh no' plus Bruce would deliberately try to take away Steph's support systems that she did have multiple times like when he ordered Cass to stop training with Steph.

But that's besides the point, I wouldn't be surprised if Jason confused being Robin with being accepted in the manor so when Bruce threatened to take away Robin from him, he might've seen it as his only proper support system being taken away from him, his world felt rocked back into instability once again.

When you look at it like that, it's very easy to understand why Jason sought out his biological mother. He had a hope that Sheila would offer him that stability once more, and that he'd get support and trust and unconditional love.

And that’s what make it all the more heartbreaking to me he came to this woman seeking love and gave her his greatest secret and she repaid him with a horrific death.  Jason’s death is one of the saddest to me because there’s no high stakes 'he died saving the world stuff' he’s just a kid who wanted a mom and got killed for it.

DC’s habit of taking away who he was is so detrimental to his backstory as the Red Hood because the transformation from someone who tried being kind and who did give it their all being killed for it and coming back like ‘no more’ is so much more interesting than ‘we always knew this would happen’.

Robin disobeying orders is nothing new. If that was the core of why Jason died, then any Robin disobeying orders should never be put in a positive light, but often it is. Jason (and Steph) were just the ones unlucky enough to emerge dead and judged for it instead of alive and praised for it.

Jason died because he was a child who just wanted to be safe and loved.

So many times Robin disobeying orders saved lives it’s nothing new and Jason had a pretty solid reason, the story of Jason Todd should be portrayed as the tragedy not make him some warning sign.

This is why I always hated the victim blaming after Jason & Steph's deaths because they died doing what if it had been Tim or Dick a Robin would be praised for, like take Steph for example we've seen constant stories of Bruce firing Robin, them going off on their own & Bruce realising he's wrong & taking them back but when Steph goes off on her own she dies the only reason Jason & Steph died is that the writers forced them to fail where they would have allowed the others to succeed.

But anyway back to my point the thing about Jason feeling like he had to earn love is why he was initially so hung up on the idea of Bruce 'replacing' him when he came back to life, he viewed Tim being robin as Bruce /transferring/ his love for Jason to another person, rather than seeing that Bruce could love Tim while still loving and missing him.

The reason Jason sought out his mother after Bruce benched him as Robin was that he viewed Bruce benching him as Bruce rejecting him and latched onto the idea of finding someone, i.e. a birth mother, who is supposed to give /unconditional love/.

The fact that his birth mother REJECTED HIM and then played a hand in his murder undoubtedly affected his attitude when he came back, if even his mother didn't want him, and then Bruce let the joker live and replaced him, then, in Jason's eyes, OF COURSE Bruce doesn't care and as mentioned previously Jason didn't really have any friends in school or the hero community, believing that the only real close personal connection in your live, someone you spent all your time with, had forgotten about you and rejected you is bound to mess a person up.

[whalehouse1]

And going off of that I believe a big issue with Red Hood besides just affecting Jason, since he is unable to grow within comics due to a mixture of edge lord and anti-hero to Batman, another issue is it is very much feeding into the Bruce Wayne erasure problem I've been seeing a lot of. People like to argue whether Bruce or Batman is the "true" person and it's very clearly both, and I feel if you say you like one but not the other you're not getting what Bruce Wayne is supposed to be. I didn't really notice how bad it was until I saw the Battison movie where he isn't Bruce Wayne, he's just 100% Batman and then watching The Dark Knight Rises and Christian Bale does a perfect Bruce Wayne and it was super refreshing to see and I didn't notice how much I missed it until after I had seen it. Batman does have emotions and cares deeply for children and he is Jason's father, so no matter how many people he's killed or tortured, Bruce has been shown that he remembers Jason pre-boom and that is who Jason is. He wants Jason to feel loved again but can't do it the way he wants and neither are able to meet each other halfway because of the medium they are a part of. It's amazing for drama and tragedy, but it can't be resolved in a satisfying way because character growth is not easy to do in comics since it can just be reversed or retcon. So Jason is stuck as many people have described it, the voice of the victim that can't seek vengeance but he can. Which I absolutely love as a concept but he can't ever get his revenge since whatever he does will never be permanent and all the other kills he's racked up mean nothing if he can't either kill Joker, get Bruce to kill Joker or according to some kill Bruce (this one makes no sense to me but I've seen it). And in doing this Jason is written without some of his core personality traits which made him so tragic so that people can say he's wrong. And yes murder is wrong but with how he's written, he would be fine if he's leaving people to starve if he's killed a "crook", when he is the same as the older Bats, he can't hurt innocents. He would not kill a person if he knew they had a family and this is a man who planned his interactions with Batman and Nightwing down to a train schedule halfway across town, but he doesn't do research past "They were higher-ups in this drug ring" and "Don't deal to kids". Jason, your mother died of an overdose, you know there will be kids affected by the drug ring even if they don't deal to minors. You're not controlling crime if you're in charge of it. And he is written to not see the hypocrisy of his actions which I refuse to believe since he's basically killing his parents, which while Freud would be soaking his undies over, again they had to "fix" his background to make it make sense that he'd kill people like his parents and his family instead of the people like Joker. The Joker is nothing compared to the drug dealers of Gotham. They are some of the lowest tier villains and basically allergies if the Joker is a cancer to Gotham. He doesn't kill anyone even close to Joker in Red Hood so it comes off as pointless. And it was awhile ago I saw it that Jason becoming a drug dealing hood is just another way to perpetuate that low-income families give birth to murders and criminals. Whether that was the intention or not, it mixed with how violent they are trying to make him into as Robin, is giving off very fatalistic or "of course the street urchin is still a POS" reading, which is quite awful. Those are my biggest points, but it's essentially sad that Jason has so much potential but writers are super set in their ways and won't actually explore things to do with him if they want redemption or keep him as a killer. I would prefer redemption, and I know people are fine with him killing and I can't say if I would be fine with it even if it ever mattered to the story. Just take him away from the Under the Red Hood plot and let him develop please so that he can actually do something that isn't a jarring "He's a good guy who doesn't kill lol" or "He kills it's fine."

The Red Hood Problem (for me):

This is more for the comic than the show since I think the movie did a much better job at Bruce than the comic did.

Jason is now a murderer after this comic, this part is fine since he can still operate in Gotham having that be true (Cass, Jean-Paul, Damian, Tim, etc.) but the way they went about it doesn’t work for me. His resurrection has him come back, go on a frenzy and kill some of Ra’s’ men before he flees into the desert. Now where his mind is at here is debated, but if he survived the desert he must have been “sane” at one point. Or you like Lost Days and the Al Ghuls just picked him back up to train him, which that’s a different issue I have with Batman comics. He then gets back to Gotham and ruthlessly kills drug lords, pimps and other such criminals as it’s the only way to protect Gotham. This is where my first problem comes into play. Jason’s father was a criminal who died due to Two-Face and his mother (Catherine, that other woman can burn for all I care) died of a drug overdose. So him coming from that background had to be retconned so he wouldn’t go “oh extreme poverty and desperation can lead people to do things they wouldn’t consider otherwise”, but instead go to the classic, “my dad beat me so it’s okay that I became an orphan”, because then he’d have to be shown recognizing that killing people could result in leaving people behind much worse off. They try to do this in Urban Legends but Jason just seems a little off character there, especially knowing Tyler’s mom might not make it along with him just being a lack of impulse control personified. Then on top of them retconning (read gaslighting) his parents, they also keep trying to rewrite him as this super grumpy Robin who just would attack without thought. But we have the original Jason stories, he was rough around the edges, sure, but he wasn’t cruel or nasty or more violent than other Robins. And that’s what makes Red Hood so tragic, is he lost his joy and became resentful instead. He still kept his kindness in well-written stories, because he’s the same as Cass when it comes to bleeding hearts. If they can’t save someone they go full on Bruce moping mode. But nope, now we have Jason who couldn’t care less about saving people, he just wants to sow discord. And I know it was all to get the Joker out of Arkham, which just shows Jason as stupid (he isn’t but they love putting the stupid Robin label on him and Steph) since if he waited a day or two, Joker would be back on the streets. Then we get to my final issue, aside from Bruce not wanting to kill Joker but having no issue slicing Jason’s throat. It completely invalidates so much of Bruce’s decision to not kill the Joker that the hypocrisy leaks through the page and destroys any reason Jason could hold onto the “He didn’t kill because it’s his one rule” which yes is understandably frustrating for Jason but at least could give him some reason to think Bruce didn’t just value him as a body on the job. Which Bruce didn’t, Bruce, before some twats got allowed to write him, loved his children unconditionally, spent time with them and was a good father to them. This dunks on that harder than him and Dick in Infinite Crisis. It also perpetuates the Batman/Joker Optimus Prime/Megatron dynamic of “we’re made for each other to kill!!!”, which I’m fine with when it’s the Joker thinking that but not Batman. These rogues do not mean more to him than his children. He assaulted Two-Face, one of his closest friends when he attacked Dick, extremely violently might I add, but Joker gets a pass because “they’re the same you and I”? No that’s some BS right there. Also it cements the Red Hood backstory and I’m firmly anti-backstory Joker. But the actual final problem is the redemption part of his story. Writers don’t seem to do this and have him revert back to killing or he uses non-lethal rounds 😑, but it usually comes out of nowhere and it never is satisfactory. Have him keep killing and have the Bats have to put him away or actually write character growth for him in the Batman comic so it can more easily bleed over. But they won’t since edge lords sell. I absolutely love Jason and I as much as I wish you could retcon his death.

[thattimdrakeguy]

TIM DRAKE’S CANONICAL ORIGIN - No fanon, no misconceptions, just what’s on the page. “BATMAN NEEDS ROBIN.”

When it comes to Tim’s origin and general backstory, there’s been a LOT of misconceptions and misinformation spread about it, that either change the vibe, or the entire events in-general.

So as Tim as a character means a lot to me. I thought it’d be good post to make a big post explaining Tim’s origin as best and clear as I can, as most people don’t have access to his original origin to be able to see for themselves.

It essentially goes like this:

This moment here, is more or less how it all began for Tim. Getting to meet Dick was something that stuck with him for more than one reason. A good reason, but also a very bad reason.

Tim’s parents (actually just his mother) where worried that Tim would be very scared of his time at the circus, and so his parents asked The Flying Graysons if they would take a picture with him to show that they were just people despite all the costumes.

Although, that was just a mother’s worry, because Timmy was actually having a blast.

Dick immediately stuck with Tim, and it’s even where the first hair ruffle between them happened all those years before they truly knew each other.

But then, as things would have it, this was the last day The Flying Graysons flew across the trapeze, and they would die that night. Traumatizing the tiny toddler Tim.

He reveals all of this to Dick Grayson, who he worries about hurting from telling him, given the obvious trauma Dick would face from having such a tragedy effect him.

This event being so engrained into Tim’s mind made this event not only be the spawning point for the original Robin with Dick Grayson, but also the third (and as of this post, present) Robin with the boy this post is about, Tim Drake.

He couldn’t forget about what he seen that night since it practically haunted him from that day forward. It wouldn’t leave him, but despite the PTSD it gave the little toddler Tim, it also ended up leading to another important part of Tim’s origin.

His haunted memories, that gave him PTSD, and nightmares for years, allowed him to remember details that would lead to find out Batman and Robin’s secret identities. Which would ultimately lead to his biggest jump towards Robin.

The next stage of his origin wouldn’t take place till he was thirteen. He kept the identities safe, and to himself as he genuinely did care about Batman and Robin.

Cared about them so much to the point he risked his own life for them.

--

And here’s where a big misconception about Tim’s origin and backstory comes from. People think that Tim was out searching for Batman every day and night, but that’s not distinctly true, as in actuality, as far as his origin shows and says. Tim only searched for him on this one day, because he was worried about him. He just clipped newspapers, watched the news, and made fan art instead.

He later explains that his escapades was because he was worried about Batman after the trauma Bruce felt after Jason’s death. Batman was becoming more violent and on a rampage, and Tim sought to go find Dick Grayson to ask him to become Robin again to help Bruce remember what he was like before, and to not sink any lower.

Tim was pretty much in love with Batman and Robin during his childhood. They could never leave his brain, both after the night the Graysons died and he saw Batman, and after he solved the case of their identities. It can be assumed that after figuring out who they were he grew even more of a connection to them. A face and humanity to the icons that he was obsessed with as a kid and even then, he still loved them so much as when he showed up to them again he was still a little kid. He cared about them a lot, and worried about him.

During his origin we get a very good idea of what Tim is like: He’s very very naïve almost to the point of danger, he conducts himself in a very socially oblivious way, he has a very big smart brain that can figure stuff out but still follows his heart, he often doesn’t know any better, he’s excitable just by seeing them but you can also tell by his expressions that he’s still very very anxious and nervous, he’s brave, will fight for what he thinks is right, and puts his heart into anything he loves/cares about.

On top of that, he shows that he has an insanely natural and instinctual sense of detective work. He’s absolutely impressive for as small and young as he is.

He went from Gotham City in New Jersey to New York City where the Titans where, shown to just be riding on his bike (although it’s fair to assume he also took busses), got his own hotel room, searched how where they lived and all else.

Which is a heck of a lot of things to do for a little boy as sheltered as Tim was.

Yet the way it’s portrayed, it comes across like Tim genuinely just didn’t know any better. He had this goal that he wanted to accomplish, and despite the fact that most people’s logic would say that it’s too dangerous, he just goes for it.

All just because he wants Batman to go back to what he remembered. A Batman that wouldn’t risk the lives of the people he fought, or beat them to near-death. He hoped in his heart that he could be able to bring back a happier Batman, and that he could hopefully have Batman remember who he used to be before Jason’s death.

Tim thought that Batman needed a Robin, because Batman needed something to remember who he was. Something that would bring him back from his lonely, more aggressive self, and back to being more of the true, blue, hero he once was.

Which is insanely naïve, and unrealistic, but, hey he did it, I suppose.

He continued to use his detective skills to find Dick.

Who as fate would have it, ended up finding Tim sneaking through the trash because Tim was trying to solve a crime that was committed at Haly’s Circus.

Something that I enjoy about this story as well, as a bit of a side note, is that Tim isn’t portrayed as a Gary Stu despite his massive general talent in solving crimes, because Tim doesn’t beat Dick, and Tim doesn’t actually get the culprit of the crime right either.

They still show that despite how clever, and brave Tim can be, that he’s still a little kid that doesn’t know nearly as much as he likes too.

Not that it stops Tim from fanboying Dick even more so.

Eventually Tim gets the chance to explain to Dick his main purpose of showing up is.

Where he also shows hints of his very simplistic and black and white way of thinking. As he seems to not be aware of the nuances that many people actually think with. To the point that he’s actually indirectly offensive.

Which is a habit of Tim, but he’s never hurtful out of malice (at least until they wanted him edgy, or he genuinely isn’t enjoying the person he’s with), he’s mostly just hurtful out of ignorance. He doesn’t know better, and he’s shown regretting it when ever the person reacts in the ways you expect.

Tim actually shows a lot of signs of having Autism, but that’s never really been a thing they go into, but it is an interesting thing to note. As Tim shows a lot of Autistic traits.

They go to stately Wayne Manor, where Tim mainly repeats what he’s there for, and goes into detail about his backstory, which I’ve shown earlier in the post.

and explains where his parents are, and where he lives.

A lot of people seem to think they just always left Tim alone and he went to public school, but Tim didn’t go to public school till his Robin miniseries.

Although, I don’t know what happens during a vacation week, like I don’t know if they stay or not, but since Tim’s shown having a nanny during his ongoing, I figure it’s safe to say he still had a nanny then as well.

Also to note that, in this and his appearances shortly after, he seems to be really oblivious that his parents were in the wrong for leaving him with other people instead of actually raising him. That is until later where Tim shows that he clearly does realize eventually. 

They also have Alfred reading into Dick’s way of thinking as they imply that he wants Tim to become the next Robin.

Because Dick certainly doesn’t want to be Robin again.

But they sort of contradict Dick’s feelings here, as Dick’s shown to be fed up with Tim’s insensitivity even if Tim does genuinely mean well.

So I’m not sure what really happened there. I have to guess that it’s mainly just Alfred that wants Tim to become Robin again, but he can’t admit that to himself just yet.

Tim panics and cries on realization that he offended Dick, and shows once again that he’s just a child that can’t and doesn’t understand what all he needs to in order to understand the situation. 

He’s just a small kid that wants his heroes to be okay again.

Which after Dick and Batman get into danger, Tim decides on one thing, even if Dick won’t be Robin again, Batman still needs a Robin.

He even makes it clear that despite fantasizing what being Robin would be like, that he never wanted it for himself. He’s just doing it, because no one else will and he feels he has to. He’s stepping up to the plate and becoming the hero he feels he needs to be.

Even if it ends with Alfie the Butler having to save him, because like I said before, despite his smarts, Tim definitely wasn’t a Gary Stu. He was a great detective, very brave, acrobatic, and knew karate, but evidentially he wasn’t very great at karate and didn’t know enough about what he was getting himself into.

Not that he doesn’t prove himself useful at all. As he actually ends up saving their lives even if he still ended up nearly breaking his freaking limbs apart doing it, but ayy, when that adrenaline pumps.

and this is the last important part of the origin to show, besides the part where Bruce agrees to train Tim.

He gives his speech, he pours his heart out, and can only hope that he got into Batman’s heart enough for him to listen to him, and would allow Tim to take his place by Batman’s side, and earning Alfred and Dick’s approval in the process (if they didn’t have it already).

--

So Tim wasn’t an over-talented, mega mature, Gary Stu, that was left alone to cry at his parents house, and stalked Batman and Robin every night, till the day he decided he was going to be Robin himself.

In actuality Tim was just an innocent, naïve little boy, that didn’t have enough supervision, that went out of his way to meet Batman and Nightwing just in hopes that they’d listen to him, because he was so worried about Batman’s well-being, and thought that only Robin could really solve it. He was talented as far as detective skills go, but even then he didn’t solve the case at the circus. He just had enough talent to show that he had it in him to become something more, and he persevered through to do it.

With so much misinformation spread about Tim’s origin, I think quite a few don’t really get the pathos and ethos out of it that they would if they had his origin available for themselves to read.

Because you can get quite a different image than what was actually on the page for Timmy’s origin story.

He’s just a well-meaning, oblivious boy, that probably should’ve had someone watching over him, with potential for a big brain in him.

He’s not the brightest bulb, or the toughest fighter, but what they do show in his origin is that he had a big heart, and plenty of enthusiasm to be a good Robin. He had the care and determination to make sure things were better before he left, even if his hopes were naïve.

His empathy and determination really is what got him the job. His detective work was just what helped him get to where he needed to be to really show that to them.

Tim Drake’s the little boy that said “Batman needs Robin”.