#That Tim may not know

[malenjoyer]

WE'RE SO BACK

[sakuravalelp]

A dream land - DP X DC Prompt

Okay, so I was thinking about that episode "Perchance to dream" where Bruce is trapped in a dream world and this, even thought really different, came to my mind.

Danny is king or prince of the infinite realms. He's been working on personalizing/decorating his castle in the infinite realms. When he feels someone walking just outside the castles walls. The thing is, that someone isn't a denizen, they aren't in a corporeal body, but he can feel that they are very much alive and feel distinctly human. He approaches the person to ask why and how they are in the infinite realms, but they fade away before he gets the opportunity.

Clockwork, who was with him at the moment, tells him that the visitor from the living, was just the soul projection of someone that was sleeping, and then refuses to elaborate further. Since it's something that was to do with sleeping, Danny decides to go and ask Nocturn, it seemed like a reasonable assumption that he was the one at fault for the soul projection.

Contrary to what he thought, Nocturn informed Danny that Sleeping soul projection was a natural phenomenon that he didn't control. The land of dreams, ("My domain" - Nocturn reminds him), was in the infinite realm after all, and those who have been close to death sometimes slipped they're whole soul instead of just their mind, and ended up all over the infinite realms.

It isn't too different from a lucid dream for them, the body gets all the benefit of the sleep, the mind feels rested if they had a good time in the realms. Except, if they hurt their soul too bad during their little trip, it would have real consequences. Loosing memories, abilities regression, migraine, pain that reflects the soul damage, all either temporary until the soul healed, or permanent and deteriorating, and in some occasions finishing in the persons death. In the latter, the soul is usually too damaged and cease it's existence, or have enough ectoplasm and emotion to form into ghosts with crack cores whose existence is instantly in danger.

Danny clearly didn't like the image that was painted to him, so he asked Nocturn if there was really nothing that he could do. It took a lot of talking and convincing, but eventually Nocturn admitted he could be able to direct the soul projecting to appear on a certain place, but he refused to babysit anyone. Which was enough for Danny, all he needed to do was make another expansion in his castle.

He decided to make a garden to receive their soul projecting guests. The garden was enormous, with all kinds of spaced within it. Playgrounds, picnic spaces, soft benches, tables with ghost and space teamed board games, fountains, and of course, the beautiful flowers that surrounded and decorated the place. Once he got ghosts with gardening, protection and caring obsessions on the place to look out for the souls, he was ready to receive them. It took him by surprise the amount of people that came, the garden was never crowded, but was never empty either, and souls of all ages and places were visiting at all times.

He kept expanding the garden as he heard of new things their guests wished for. He enjoyed spending time in the middle of the garden where souls passed by but rarely appeared, it was calm, but not completly quite with the background noice of the soul enjoying their dreams, and he could do the more mundane king/prince work. Until, he starts getting a regular visitor on his little space of the garden.

Choose the DC character you prefer, my idea is for people who hasn't died in the past but has been in the doors of death (so died and came back would be disqualified but you do as you prefer), but I'm going with Tim.

The soul of a boy around his age appears just in front of him, as usual when he greets new arriving soul, he welcomes him with a gentle smile and tells him he is free to explore the garden. A ghost taker is assign to him. The soul, as usual, seems confused and like he wished to asks questions, but seems content to ask them to his tour guide, and Danny continues with his own duties.

But then, the same soul continues to appear in the same place every two or three days, they exchange greetings and every time talk for a bit longer before the boy leaves to explore once more. It's rear to have multiple visits from one soul, even more so for said soul to appear in the same place every time. By the four time, Danny decides to take a break on his royal duties and accompany his new friend.

~ They get close, and have cute scenes, Tim asks a lot of questions and Danny answers and not-answers a lot of questions ~

One day, Tim shows up as usual, but he is in full Red Robin costume, and well, Danny wasn't expecting an identity reveal.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

On the Bats side:

There's an attack of some villain that's able to put Red Robin (or character of your choice) on a sleeping beauty type of sleep while carrying a serious injury, were he stays sleep until teammates or backup gets him out of it. The event affects his soul, making him disconnect partially from the land of dreams and making his soul sleep project almost every time he sleeps.

Tim starts sleeping more often. It's worrying at first, Bruce being paranoid does every test in the book, despite Tim saying he's just finding sleep easier now. But, he was just affected by sleeping magic and suddenly his sleeping easier? Seems like a side effect, and that makes it worrying.

Tim's health in general improve, just like he's concentration and productivity. Who would have thought that working rested actually was more productive than working on less than three hours of sleep and missing obvious details and clues due to how tired you are.

With everything not only being okay, but better than before, paranoia about Tim's new sleeping schedule soon dies, and instead is replaced with teasing about how he used to refuse to rest kicking and screaming, and now he may sleep more than any of them.

On Tim's side, he's loving being able to soul project so often. He knew from the start he was in a different dimension, and he just wanted to know the hows, whys, and everything else. So far, he seems to do it at least once every three days, and he's even gone two times in a row a couple of times.

The garden had a lot of things to do, but Tim doesn't care about that, he's more interested in all the information he's getting. The first 3 times he was given different ghost nanny's, who were more focus on entertaining him and didn't really answer direct question. But then king/prince Phantom decided to accompany him personally, and everything went smoother. He was going back to get to know more about this new world, and maybe to know more about the cute prince/king too. He might also have gotten some better looking pajamas.

Now, he has a mission that takes more than a couple days with some people in his team that hasn't yet sen his face. He didn't realize how difficult it would be to do all nighters after getting used to a sleep schedule. He would usually try to go as long as possible without sleeping, but he decides that he should take advantage of the safety of where they're staying and sleep a bit too. He ended up soul projecting in full Red Robin costume. He tried to play it cool, maybe Phantom wouldn't know it was him.

"Red Robin, even if you didn't appear on the same spot as always, I can feel your soul. I know who you are."

[casscainmainly]

Why Duke Thomas Should Be A Dick Grayson Hater

Dick and Duke is such an underrated and underexplored relationship. Here is my pitch for why Duke should be a Dick Grayson hater.

1. The Rooftop Thing

Reason number one and the start of Duke's grudge should be the rooftop incident in Robin War. Dick, as part of his plan or whatever, leads Duke to a roof and abandons him to the cops.

LOOK AT DICK'S SMUG FACE. Tell me you wouldn't hold a grudge too if this was the FIRST major interaction you had with him?? Duke should use this against him at any possible opportunity.

2. ACAB

From We Are Robin #2. Once Duke finds out Dick used to be a cop, it's OVER for him.

3. Jason and Damian

Duke is quite close with Jason and Damian (in my head, particularly Damian - that's his LITTLE BROTHER). Anyway, these two are obsessed with Dick. You have Jason, with his miles-long brother issues that puts Dick on a pedestal, and you have Damian, who thinks Dick is the best person on Earth who can do no wrong. They would talk Duke's ears off about him. Duke would HATE IT.

4. Robin

This panel from Night of the Monster Men sums up quite nicely the difference in the way Dick and Duke approach vigilantism. Duke is the 'idealised' Robin, whose Robin-ing isn't contingent on Batman; Dick is more or less too tied up in Bruce. I think, because the Robin identity means a lot to Duke, having the original Robin be like this would irk Duke a LOT.

5. Tom Taylor

SPOILERS FOR CURRENT NIGHTWING RUN: in Nightwing #116, Dick gets framed for murder and Babs tells him to reveal he's Nightwing to clear him of suspicion. She says Bruce suggested it, and recounts everyone who agreed:

Hm. Is someone missing here? Oh yeah: DUKE. TT probably just forgot Duke, but where's the fun in that? Instead, if Duke is a Dick Grayson hater, you have the funniest scene imaginable. Everyone gathered in the Batcave, laying down their identities for Dick, and Duke is like 'I don't give a damn. He can rot in jail.' and peaces out.

BONUS points if he does this to get back at Dick for reason number 1.

6. Parallels

Duke's origin deliberately mirrors Bruce's, but that means it mirrors Dick's as well. Duke and Dick parallels go insane: they both had loving families, lost both parents at once, were in the foster system (varyingly for Dick but for the purposes of this post I'm gonna include it), were wards/not adopted by Bruce initially, have a huge reverence for family, have a thing about heights, view Robin as separate from Batman, forged their own identities, etc.

Tell me this page doesn't slap:

Anyway Duke would HATE this too. He'd be so annoyed that the person he has the most in common with is Dick, and that would fuel his Dick Grayson haterism.

Dick, on the other hand, has no hard feelings towards Duke. Duke would be glowering at him from the corner of the room and Dick would meet his gaze and be like 'ah Duke is so cute' and smile back. This would make Duke 10000x angrier.

Anyway that's my ideal Dick and Duke dynamic, feel free to add or modify or disagree with anything!!

[kaidatheghostdragon]

Good reveal au, where after learning phantom's identity and realizing the atrocities that the GIW have committed (or alternatively, ethical science au, where they find out the GIW plagarized them), the fenton parents decided to create the 'ultimate ghost-ending weapon' and sell it to the agents.

They go absolutely overboard, describing to the agents in meticulous detail how it evaporates any ghost it hits near-instantly and describing it quite ruthlessly in the blueprints, and soon the GIW have raplaced all their main weapons with the new gun.

Except it doesn't actually kill ghosts. It's the Fenton Bazooka. You know, the one that creates a portable portal to suck the ghost back into the ghost zone? What they actually did was retool it slightly to make it look more grusome than it actually is. They even added a beacon in Phantom's Keep, which all Fenton Bazookas will target when they open a portal, so the ghosts are always delivered to the keep.

From there, Phantom stationed an emergency medical team at the keep to treat the many injured and ragged ghosts that the GIW 'destroyed,' and to explain what just happened.

What they didn't anticipate was that now that the GIW have a mass-produced weapon that they believed would effectively eradicate ghosts, they would go on the offensive. They have a number of cities they've been monitoring but didn't want to get involved in without better tools.

One of those cities is Gotham.

And the Bats are ectocontaminated enough to register as ghosts.

Batman witnessed several of his children get evaporated by green energy weapons within mere moments of each other. He's absolutely gutted. Devastated. They didn’t even stand a chance.

He'll get his revenge, and it's frighteningly easy to track the weapon to private subcontractors. The Doctors Fenton, in Illinois. Their research calls for the genocide of all ghost kind, and apparently, that war started by killing his own children.

His children will not die in vain.

He gets to Amity Park and finds the Engineer's Nightmare of a building that is Fentonworks, but that night, before he can hack through the security and break in, one of the windows opens.

It's one of his kids that he had watched evaporate before his very eyes. They give him a silent signal of one of their identifying security codes and gesture for him to come inside.

Is it a trap? A prank in poor taste? Utterly genuine?

He goes through the window.

All of his dead kids are there, wearing borrowed pajamas and only their dominoes to conceal their identities. Daniel Fenton (son of the Fentons, this is his bedroom, has voiced a few arguments against his parent's views, but still an unknown) is among the crowd of teens and young adults, twirling on an office chair and obnoxiously sipping a capri sun.

"First thing you need to know, Bats," Daniel says after finishing his drink, "is that my parents are absolutely NOT genocidal ectophobic scumbags, and that is the reason why your kids are still alive."

[bluerosefox]

Courting Chaos (to Balance)

A KlarionxDanny brain worm that has spawned

Tim Drake, aka Red Robin gets kidnapped suddenly and very randomly by Klarion in the middle of a JL and others meeting.

Leaving with a

"I'LL RETURN HIM WHEN HES NO LONGER USEFUL JUSTICE LOSERS!"

And fire and chaos in his wake.

While the JL, and others scramble to figure out what Klarion has planned this time, Tim manages to break free of whatever Klarion had used to kidnap him only to find himself on a couch and Klarion nervously petting Teekl on his lap while also sitting in a chair across from him.

When Tim goes to demand to know why Klarion kidnapped him Klarion finally speaks.

"Okay, I wanna strike a deal. I won't bug you or your little Young Just US buddies if you help me ask someone out..."

"...What the fuck Klarion?" Was Tim's only response.

-x-x-

So it turns out, every so often the three main entities and actual factions of Order, Chaos, and Balance get together to well discuss things happening in certain Realms, worlds, and timelines. Basicly to touch base, see where everyone was at. Etc etc.

Order was Order. Chaos was Chaos.

Very simple.

Both could be bad. To much order caused restraint and could snuff out growth. To much Chaos could get out of hand and cause ruin.

Both could be good. Order help stabilizes worlds and builds their future. Chaos allowed creativity to roam and brought forth wonderful things.

And Balance.

Well Balance was the very scales that kept both sides in check. They were neutral grounds. The ones that normally oversaw the meetings as well. And despite their low numbers they held powerful entities that more than made up for it.

Balance did their best to keep things in check, sure they do have their own preference sometimes and allowed the scales to tip a tiny bit but always corrected it later if it tips to much.

It was at this meeting, a meeting even Klarion knew better than to do anything too chaotic, pranks were fine but nothing too much, and had been chatting with a newcomer to the side of Chaos (Danielle, call me Ellie, Phantom. She did some heroing on the side but liked causing chaos in her wake to do so, he liked her so far though.) When the bells for the side of Balance to appear announced them.

Ellie had smiled brightly and said her brother was coming with his mentor, turns out her brother was apart of the Balance group which meant that he was strong, strong enough to need a mentor.

He watched as the members of Balance walked, teleported, flew, and other means into the meeting halls. And then froze when his eyes caught sight of him.

Floating next to a blue skined being that was switching ages was a beautiful otherworldly person.

Snow white hair that wisped upwards oh so softly. Glowing green eyes that were cat-like with their piercing glance. A galaxy cloak hanged around his shoulders and seemed to shift with each movement. Star like freckles decorated his face and seemed to glow a soft bluish white. A crown made of ice and aurora lights floated above his head as well.

All in all Klarion couldn't keep his eyes off of the being at all. He nearly spat his water out when Ellie commented that was her brother Danny, or rather.

High King of the Infinite Realms, Daniel 'Danny' Phantom. The Great One. Defeater of the Tyrant King. The Halfa. The Peaceful End. The Balance of the Undead. (And his mentor was the Ghost of Time itself. THE very Keeper of Time, Kronos original form himself.)

Klarion honestly didn't know what to think or rather what emotions he was feeling when he spotted Danny, nor why his face felt so hot and red when the young man looked over at them and smiled. (He was smiling at Ellie but Klarion for some reason hoped it was for him as well)

It wasn't until halfway in the meeting when a rather ingenious prank that Klarion, Ellie, and a few others had set up went off... thing was it strong enough that it had hit Danny's side of the meeting and had hit him.

Now, again pranks were okay but only after the meetings. It was one of the few rules many, even those in Chaos, took seriously because once it was done and over they could go do their things. So for it to happen in the middle of a meeting means someone set their time on the prank wrong and add the fact it hit a person on the Balance side...

Yeah not good.

Only...

Only instead of getting angry, even Clockwork who was seated next to Danny was chuckling, Danny threw his head back and laughed about it. And his laugh... was very cute.

And before he knew it, Klarion had already fallen.

-x-x-

"So yeah.... Since you have a boyfriend and know how to date in this modern age, I need your advice."

".... Klarion just because I'm dating Bernard doesn't mean I know how I did it..."

"Bernard? I thought you were dating that one Supes?"

[hailsatanacab]

A Persuasive Argument - dpxdc

"Great!" Danny says, clapping his hands together to get everyone's attention. The dinner table falls silent as everyone looks towards him. It's a full house today and, honestly, Danny's a little nervous. "I'm sure you're all wondering why I gathered you here today."

"It's dinnertime. In our house." Duke mutters, while doing a very bad job of concealing his yawn. He holds his fork poised over the braised beef, but, just like everyone else, still looks towards Danny before tucking in. It's intriguing enough to wait.

"Yeah, no one misses Alfie's dinner." Dick says, with a brilliant smile that Danny can't help but return.

"Precisely! What better time to talk to you all than when you're all actually here!"

"Wait, I thought you came round to work on our English essays?" Tim asks, blinking owlishly.

"I'm afraid I've lured you here under false pretences, Tim."

"This is where I live."

"I would still really appreciate help on that essay though, I mean, what the hell is Hamlet even about? I just don't get that old time-y language, like 'Hark! A ghost hath killed me!' - absolute rubbish, what does that even mean?"

"The ghost never kills anyone in Hamlet, he's there to tell Hamlet that he was murdered. Have you actually read it?"

"No, but it sounds like you have. Tim, I want this guy to help me with my essay instead. I know for a fact that you haven't read Hamlet, either."

"So? We don't need Jason, I've read the Sparknotes."

"Hi Jason, I'm Danny, pleasure to meet you, summarise Hamlet in three sentences or less."

"Am I auditioning to help you write your essays? I can't believe you’ve gone through your whole school life without reading it, it’s good!"

"Hamlet, along with a number of other classics, was banned in our house because it portrayed ghosts as intelligent and sympathetic beings rather than evil, animalistic beasts. I didn’t even get to see The Muppet's Christmas Carol until last year with Tim! It was surprisingly good, and I hate Christmas because everyone always argued and it sucked. But we're getting off topic. I—"

"No, no, please go back to that, because what the fu—"

"Boys, please." Bruce interrupts, looking to the world as if he wants to hang his head in his hands. "Danny, you were about to say something?"

"Oh, yeah, Mr. Wayne! Thanks!"

"Please, call me Bruce."

"Well, that very succinctly brings me to my point, because I'd actually really like to call you dad."

Nobody says a word. Nobody even blinks, all as shocked as the other, watching open-mouthed as Danny pulls his laptop out from beside his chair. Bruce can definitely feel a headache coming on.

"Before you say anything, I've prepared a 69 slide PowerPoint presentation on why you, Bruce Wayne, should adopt me, Danny Last-Name-Pending. Please save your questions, comments, and verdict until the end, thank you."

[bet-on-me-13]

Supers and Bats

So! Jazz, Danny, Dan, and Ellie are adopted by Clark Kent and Lois Lane after bouncing around the System for a while.

Jazz couldn't legally take care them because she's just an 18 yr old in College and couldn't provide for two 16 yr Olds and a 12 yr Old on her own.

(Dan is in his Post-AGIT Body, so he looks like Danny's Twin Brother, and Ellie is still 12 because she hasn't started Aging yet.)

Anyways, eventually the Fenton Family opens up about their Powers and are accepted into the Super Family. They even Begin acting as Heroes for Metropolis, taking on their own Super names. Like Superkid, Supergal, and Superguy, all lazy but funny names that fit the Family Naming Convention.

And you know the Rule, if you are a Super, you will inevitably end up with your very own Bat.

Obviously Clark adopted Bruce as his Bat. They were the originals, the OG's, they set the precedent.

Kon adopted Tim as his Bat while on YJ, or maybe or was the other way around? They both don't know, since they were both absolutely Messes when they were on that Team. It really could have gone either way.

Jon and Damien have been eachothers Bat/Super since the Day they met. Let's even say Jon never got stuck in that Time Paradox and stays the same age (a gift from peepaw Clocky)

Barbara actually gets Jazz. She's not exactly as Super as the rest of her Family and Adopted Family, but she he up there. And she constantly studies for her Classes at Barbara's Library, so they get to hang out a lot and bond over having to take care of their respective Families.

Danny and Duke get along well, and decide that Danny is now his Super. They started hanging out when Danny decided to become the 2nd Day Shift Hero of Gotham on a whim, cause why is Duke the only one? He splits his time between Metropolis and Gotham but as a Super it's not an inconvenience. They like Joking with eachother on patrol.

Surprisingly Dan and Dick get along very well. Dick used to be extremely Agressive and Violent, and can relate to Dan who has recently begun trying to ugnore his more extreme reactions. They bond over the feeling of not being understood as kids and their shared "Extremely Repressed Anger" emotions. (Dick doesn't have dad instincts shut up jason)

Cass and Steph take one look at "Still a 12 yr old Chaos Gremlin" Ellie and decide that she is theirs now. It's okay, they can share! They absolutely love their brand new Little Sister, and let her be the biggest of Gremlins!

Most people forget but Jason has Bizzaro as his Super, while he is on the Outlaws. Once Ellie hears about Bizzaro's situation, she helps stabilize him using some of Vlad's old Tech. So Bizzaro gets to live in this! Yay!

That's the idea, thoughts?

[plutonicbees]

young just us: the game 👾

based off of the scott pilgrim video game, i wanted to play around with the idea of what the yj98 team would look like in the same style.. mostly i just wanted to draw everybody as silly little pixel sprites

(character sprite pngs + mount justice landscape under cut)

[morganbritton132]

I bet there’s discourse in Gotham about if you can make jokes about Tim falling asleep in public because a good portion of the city thinks he’s narcoleptic.

[dreamyluigi]

y'all know that one goofy image

[oifaaa]

The way some people act like coffee addict is the most outrageous piece of fanon regarding Tim is so funny to me bc idk about the rest of you but I hardly actually encounter people who genuinely think he's addicted to coffee or if I do they don't constantly bring it up but you know what people do constantly bring up baby 7 year old stalker on the streets of Gotham with a camera Tim

[muzsmocsing]

I love that Dungeon Meshi does have that adult in a teenage body trope that makes me ill in most anime but instead of the objectified little girl-ancient mage thing it's a divorced father of 3 who looks like an 8th grader discovering South Park and atheism for the first time.

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

Halloween prompts year 2 day 23

Au where Danny hides his powers and eldrich nature from his husband Tim and Tim hides his vigilante career from Danny.

Both are very successful and neither suspects a thing. Tim had originally planned to admit to being a hero at some point but they were always either interrupted or it just wasn't the right time and then Danny had mentioned a few times during thier engagement and marriage that he couldn't handle being with a superhero or vigilante and that it was a deal breaker. Unfortunately Tim was already deeply in love and couldn't bare to break up with him so now he lives in fear of Danny finding out and blackmailed the rest of the family into never letting it slip.

Danny is in a similar situation, ever since the portal incident people were afraid of his other half and no matter how hard he tried they always ended up hating him. He loved Tim and couldn't bare the thought of his husband having that same look of terror. Of hate. So he hid. Its all he could do. Back when he and his friends went on that road trip and gained the power of the reality gauntlet he had tried to undo his undeath entirely only to find out Danny had glitches spacetime enough that even if he undid it (which the gauntlet was incapable of doing) he would eventually wind up with the portal opening up on top of him at another date. Call it fate or destiny or whatever you like. He was stuck like this.

So he did the next best thing. He erased any proof he had ever existed. Even from the minds of his own friends. He then skipped town-or in this case universes- and used the gauntlets power to carve out a false identity in this new world full of heroes and hope

Luckly there was no one who could rat him out...until some blond guy in a trenchcoat started following him around the grocery store and talking to him. At first Danny was a little confused and annoyed but when he asked what the blond guy wanted he asked, "I wanna know what you are." And Danny went pale.

Constantine then proceeded to blackmail Danny into helping him with a case or else he would expose his dirty little secret to Tim.

Danny made the a deal, ensuring that it would only be this one time. He told Tim that he was being blackmailed but insinuated that it was something petty between him and some of the other high society house spouses. The kind of drama that Tim always made extra sure to steer clear of. He swore to Tim he was this close to spiking Bethanys muffins with a laxative in retaliation for something and Tim gave helper suggestions for how to do it without being caught while they got ready for the day.

Ever since Alfred passed away it was up to Danny and a few other people to keep the Waynes from falling apart. Honestly, no one realized how much that man did until he wasn't around anymore.

To be fair he pretty much spoiled Tim by picking up after him to the point the man can't function after a few days. If Danny ever had to leave Tim alone for prolonged periods of time he would return to a giant mess and something burning in the kitchen.

Danny would clean, Tim would spew a fountains worth of apologizes, he would forgive Tim (as if he was ever mad in the first place. This just reaffirmed that Tim needed him to protect and care for him, making his core vibrate in happiness) then they would...reacquaint themselves. He nearly shifted forms the first few times this happened. That would be one heck of a way for Tim to find out about his ghost half.

Danny smiled, thinking about those memories. He truly adored Tim and couldn't imagine a life without him. He would just have to make sure this trench coated guy never came anywhere near his precious husband.

John would really like to know what this entity was and what it wanted with the Wayne brat. It couldn't really be in love with the kid, could it? He had personally seen these relationships work out before but there many more he had seen that hadn't. He didn't want to take that risk, so he needed to get close enough to evaluate the situation himelf.

[mamawasatesttube]

So I know you’ve mentioned it before but I just wanted to hear again your thoughts on Tim x Ives

ooohohohooo timives the gently doomed romance of it all ♥

in robin '93 and even briefly in rr09 ives is just always kind of there. he drifts out of tim's life sometimes, but he always drifts back in, later. and he's been tim's civilian best friend for so long, and tim knows so many of his secrets. they click. they don't judge each other. they make each other laugh. if tim's gonna fall for anyone he knows in his civilian life, of course it would be ives. who else has been there, been a constant, the way ives has? of course it's ives. but at the same time there's something so tasty about their contrast - the way tim runs headlong towards danger every time, while ives describes himself as a coward. the way tim feels like he has to protect him.

to me, ives is tim's first m/m relationship. it happens in a manner so cliché they both laugh at it: after taking a gap year or two, to wrangle his depression and his ptsd and his Everything, tim decides to get his ged and maybe try college (lucius tells him he'd make a great engineer at waynetech r&d, but he needs a degree for it, and he figures, okay, what the hell, he's already good at tinkering, how hard can getting a bachelor's degree in engineering be?). and then he remembers the difficult thing about being a vigilante and having a full courseload at the same time and goes AUGH. and ives, a year or two ahead of him in university classes (and majoring in something else, but still there) laughs at him. and offers to tutor him. and tim goes yeah fuck okay fine sure yeah. what the Fuck is a free body diagram. and ives laughs at him some more but also really does help him out. (when he gets really stuck and confused, especially on his second semester of chemistry, he phones up zoanne, but that's neither here nor there.)

so tim and ives have this cute little romance over study dates at cozy cafes, over accidentally running into each other at a queer student association meeting and going "oh!" about it, over movie nights at ives's apartment where they squabble over a bowl of popcorn and tim pretends he didn't sleep through the last half of the two towers, disc 2. and it feels nice, and easy, and simple...

...until it doesn't. because tim shows up to a study date with a black eye that even his best attempts at makeup can't fully hide. tim has to miss dinner, and then their rain check dinner, and only comes to the third attempt half an hour late and limping. tim is tired all the time. and he's always been sleepy all the time, but now ives is wondering. and they're making out one day and ives's hand curls over the back of tim's neck and then he recoils, because tim, what is all this scarring, what happened, holy shit is this why you grew out your hair and keep wearing turtlenecks?!

and tim goes. ah. fuck.

and it's only a matter of time. it has only ever been a matter of time. because ives knows him. but he's been lying to ives the entire time they've known each other. the other shoe has always been going to drop. it was only ever a question of when. never if.

so ives finds him out. and he's shocked, and hurt, and betrayed, but then he's even more distraught to realize that he's not that shocked. it makes sense - why tim's always tired, why tim has always been kind of flaky, why tim has always had weird injuries now and then, why tim is so unbothered in the face of things that terrify ives. but what gets him is that these are things he's thought were always just... tim. because tim has been lying to him the entire time they've known each other.

so they break up, but it's softer than it could've been. because ives gets it, he swears. he gets why tim lied. but this is... a lot, and he needs some time to process all of it, and how he feels about it, and about tim. because it's hard to reconcile his goofy gearhead (ex-)boyfriend with a caped crusader who patrols the city by night, fighting crime and solving mysteries. hard to realize just how much tim has boxed up his own life and taken care to only ever let ives see part of it. he gets it - he's not angry, after the initial outburst - but it's hard, and he needs some time. he needs some space.

and so tim's secrets eat away at one more person he cherishes. it was inevitable. they were doomed from the start. but they made each other happy anyways, for a time.

(the coda, to me: tim and ives reconnect and start working on their friendship again a few months later, and tim promises to try not to lie to him anymore, and in an effort to actually show ives the other half of his life, he introduces him to kon. so we have tim sitting there struggling with feelings and complications of feelings and what it means to be honest and to be seen. meanwhile kon says something about his opinions on star wars and ives goes "BRO i am going to KISS YOU on the MOUTH" and tim goes wait. WHAT?)

[chilfucked]

I'm thinkin abt when chilchuck does that cat thing where he looks up at you, like in your header, how he bares his neck by doin that, and how awesome it is that he feels safe enough with the touden party to do that so casually- rghhrgrhhr

dude i think about this all the fucking time. he’s such an expressive character it’s awesome. you can always tell what’s going on with him just by observing his body language

beginning of the series? before everything goes down? he’s open, relaxed. he’s really started to trust the people around again after years of not letting himself

you have him closing himself off after The Incident™️, his anger and frustration, and generally not feeling safe being on full display without needing to say anything

he closes off when he’s worried, scared, or being protective of the people around him

and he opens back up again once he starts getting comfortable with everyone again

i just. i love him so much, i love how no matter how hard he tries to keep people at bay. keep things to himself. he just. can’t. he’s an open book and boy howdy am i reading it

[ectonurites]

Byler Week Day 5 — Secret Identities

very loosely interpreting the prompt for today but i've had this idea for a while and... secret identities, Superheroes, that works. anyone who knows me well probably could have seen something like this coming LMAO

also trying to draw Robin & Superboy costumes that look thrown together and home-made when i have spent so much time drawing their actual designs was a challenge