#embarrassing how much i think abt this!!!!

[roppiepop]

reverse robins au? your choice if it’s jaytim

Aaaaaa thank u for coming in and asking abt it!!!! Reverse robin aus are one of my fave fandom specific concepts!!

Okay, so basic ground here, but my main reference points for divergence are the 4 male robins, just for linerization sake, and just because I’m most familiar with Tim he’ll prolly be the one that gets the most expansion, but i hope i can do this the way i prefer it to, which is w the most consideration i can towards canon changes affected while also letting each of them mostly keep their original arcs!!!!

- To start off i think it could be interesting to have Bruce work/train duke at the start, and the possibilities of how that would affect Bruce’s attitude towards metas in Gotham, and maybe give a little flavor to how it feels being a mentor to a kid that’s still mostly independent from him with his own family. How well this will actually be handled i still dont know.

- having Damian be the first kid he actually has to try and kind of parent right in the early bat years also come with a few considerations, i think. On one hand Bruce is definitely softer, maybe a bit more tempered having mentored before, and damian may be fresh off the league but since there’s no previous robins for him to need to fight his ‘birthright’ for, maybe there isn’t a need for any drastic measures. (I mean he’s definitely gonna fight duke on principle but i want them to gain the friendship they do in canon and since duke isn’t like, Bruce’s direct partner i think that can track.)

But then again they’re still them, and damian still has a lot of hangups on worth and legacies and is in the worst stages of blustered arrogance while bruce still doesn’t know how to communicate his feelings in effective ways and happens to have an eldest child that is equally as emotionally repressed so????? Maybe its still a really rocky road.

(I’d like for Damian to keep some of his friends here, mainly Colin and Maya to start with, maybe. I honestly dont know how likely it is for him to set up a teen hero group, but i think that’ll end up happening once he sheds his robin-equivalent mantle.

We’ll let him have his nomadic self-discovery journey i guess :/// something ala williamson’s robin maybe, but like, with his actual friends xjsbdhssbdbd we can even keep Bruce and Talia’s playing tug of war w him towards their respective ideals as a catalyst, and maybe its a bit cleaner without all the baggage of morrison’s interpretation of her.

Let’s put him at idk, 17/18 at this point.)

- One thing that i think definitely changes with having Damian in the first iteration of the dynamic duo is how the mythos is perceived. The kid is capable and ruthless and for awhile at the start, mostly cared more for animals than whoever they were saving. Definitely made rogues think twice to leverage him over batman, but probably mostly didn’t endear him much towards the ppl they encounter, though I’d like to believe that changed as he did. Though the extent of that change i need to think on lmao.

For Steph I think I’ll have her start a little before Tim’s robin-equivalent, staying as spoiler, right after Damian leaves so it goes a bit before anyone notices.

Tim’s start here might be a bit tricky to speak on logistics, he starts as a nightwing character and i mostly want to keep in spirit with that, so Damian’s got to be the fixation here. There’s not really a signature flip that could reliably be imprinted in Tim’s memory but maybe it can be simpler. Like idk a kind act at a gala during Damian’s early years that made tim take notice of him, of a verbal/physical tell that one day robin-equivalent gets caught doing, idk- but now we’re officially in Tim’s stalker era.

A recap on where the rest of the vigilantes are, i think duke is rlly nice w the outsiders i kinda want him there lol Damian’s just abt to start his shounen battle arc and steph is slowlinh appearing on Bruce’s radar but as like, a minor villain.

Something something Tim tries to find Damian, can’t seem to manage to, ends up going to the manor to ask, gets halted by alfred, somehow ends up spilling everything he knows to bruce, ????? Profit -> he gets the mantle.

(A bit clunky, a but out of nowhere, sure, but considering I’m p sure that bruce called jason ‘robin’ the moment he decided to bring him home u can gleam that the man misses having a sidekick :////)

Steph’s story is intertwined with Tim’s for better or worse, and while i like her better when she’s striking out on her own i think tim trying to prove himself before official training by like, capturing her would be a serviceable segue into Bruce training them both. Or try to at least. Steph resorts to her own resources, Tim’s parents get poisoned in Haiti.

And now with Tim and Bruce- a rocky start on the vigilante side bcs well, he may have played the mentor role before but Duke’s a meta, Damian was a ready-made assassin, and Steph, although neither, was still noticeably more athletic than Tim is, its not a big deal, but his initial benchmark was already kind of screwed (would love for tim to still end up getting unplanned training from shiva, somehow.)

But bcs of circumstances that are oh so v different than the one in canon bruce has the patience to teach him firm but kindly 👍 and since Jack is still in a coma (or maybe just kill him off fr ://) they can form a proper healthy-ish bond.

Tim’s tenure in canon is prolific but also threads through the groundwork that Dick’s run paved, and i honestly dont know how well that would’ve faired without him vouching for Tim, but it could be interesting to explore how the dynamic duo’s perception changes with a robin-equivalent that places heavy emphasis on cooperation and is definitely more approachable than the last one. I would v much like to keep that aspect of tim that knows everyone lmao

Also young justice running around without the teen titans as a precedent sounds like a hilarious concept.

We’ll say Damian finds out when Jon brings up that his little bro Kon is in a team w the new-bat partner?? I didn’t know u had a new one?? So ofc Damian storms Gotham demanding an explanation.

And see, while i definitely believe that Dami would’ve grown as a character the lack of a Dick Grayson influence makes me think that maybe he still wouldn’t be above attacking a kid in righteous anger :///// and like, he’s pissed at Bruce of course, that name wasn’t his to give, but maybe it’s all the more worse just bcs of how,,, Tim Tim is. Took his name and changed it’s association, came into his house and became his father’s partner lowkey son in aspects that never came easy to him, and has the audacity to greet him with a smile????

Oh yeah Damian definitely hates Tim. Needlessly cruel abt the one definite edge he has over the kid. And like, poor tim :/// never meet ur heroes in any timeline i g.

But anyway!! Dami might move to Bludhaven, might be somewhere else or other, definitely not anywhere near Tim if he can help it. He should be there for all those big events though, although I’m not sure which ones to keep in. Maybe Tim and Steph can coordinate for No Man’s Land. Then enter Cass, who’s also gonna be in contact mostly w those two.

This is getting soooooo long but like, then Tim dies, because he has to. We’ll pull it to be a Joker Jr. situation and give everyone that good good character development. And then there’s Jason.

- The logistics for Jason becoming robin-equivalent is also real tricky, there’s definitely the factor of making bruce laugh via attempted robbery, but i think the actual nudging can be helped along by Steph, as like, a fellow crime alley kid, idk.

But well, Jason’s time in the mantle- unfortunately he yet again can’t escape the giant shoes of his predecessor, but al least now he has a full support system in the others. And so does Bruce, this time around. It’d be nice to keep that happy status quo for long.

Enter- ‘Tim wasn’t actually dead but take a guess on who wanted it to look like that so he can take him away.’ Anyways, you know the drill. Ra’s would definitely leverage his remolding of Tim against Bruce, but he wouldn’t send him back, probably. Tim’s at a low enough point to likely agree.

Maybe Tim also didn’t come out the pit right though, maybe his brains still fractured. He doesn’t come out the way ra’s wanted and although he kept trying, one day he could’ve decided to just throw tim back to gotham like a defective toy.

Should we give Tim a villain arc? It could be done, but it’ll always be rooted in duty and the belief of serving the greater good. If he does take it up it wouldn’t involve getting in trouble with the bats, or telling them hes back- unless of course, that serves a goal, but even if tim is jealous and resentful of jason getting things like damians approval and official adoption status his self-worth issues are more,,, the internalizing kind. The ‘batman needs a robin’ ethos stays true and nothing would be gained from hurting him.

A vague idea for Tim’s comeback schtick could be operating in plain sight as Drake Industry heir. Since there’s a vacuum of any oracle position he could also dabble around in that. Maybe as loose as his morals would be its still in the service of keeping batman and robin the symbols they are idk!!!!!

- All said and done we can have Dick as proper robin, coming into the house heartbroken and angry and looking for justice and like, early resonance with Damian and idk sometime after we do Batman RIP.

(But before that we get Jason’s sheila arc maybe, he’ll survive. We could potentially pull a Tim and have his friends die on him back to back to back but idk!!!! This might be getting too bloated!!!!)

On the romance side ty for letting me choose my ideal reverse robin au is probably a damitim LOL its the genuine hatred turned remorse,,,, the obsessive affection turned cold indifference,,,, the care of it all,,,,,

V easy to turn it into a jaytim too though, the lack of murder attempts probably also make it smoother snsnsnsbdbdbd good luck trying to convince baby jay that he’s in that league though lol (the annoying little brother to lovers that could be employed here is rlly cute tho,,,, regardless of anything id def want there to be crushing)

OOF OKAY THIS WAS REALLY LONG!!!!! IM SORRY!!!! I’ve always wanted to tackle this eventually but I haven’t finished my reading lists enough to confidently make timeline decisions djsnsnsns i hope this still read clearly, tysm again for coming in!!!

[civetfish]

Nerd-to-nerd communication

Something super pointless and self-indulgent I've had on the backburner for a while. I love trying to make the pieces they gave us fit together!

Al-AN and Robin would absolutely bond over learning about each other's biology. I could talk about this forever but I'll get into all of the headcanons I have for these two in another post eventually

Below the cut is another version with some extra bits and pieces and the transcription

Transcript :

Architect Anatomy A. Architect "Brain" - Doesn't "store" information so much as allow for easy communication with the network B. Brainstem - connects the information received to the central nervous/circulatory system C. "Heart" - Circulatory system pumps the bioluminescent fluid to other organ systems and surface veins. Each node connects to a vast vasculature network D. "Kidneys" - Organs that filter the bioluminescent "blood" and other bodily fluids, absorbing and distributing collected material E. Nerve Center - Receives raw sensory data and filters it. Filtering can be unconscious or intentional

F. "Respiratory" Tract - Intakes gases or liquids and filters out material for use. Disposes of waste on exhale. Provides cooling to internal systems

The respiratory tract functions less like a set of lungs and more akin to a computer's cooling system, with the ability to absorb material from the environment to use in other parts of the body. It also would likely help the architect's body analyze the environment it is currently exposed to on a molecular level. It is also truly unidirectional, with the intake vents near the "collarbone" and the exhaust vents on both sides of the abdomen

The architect organ cache in-game felt like it was definitely not a complete model of the internal organs, so I wanted to come up with something to fill some more space. I also just really liked the idea of Al-An being capable of something similar to breathing, without having a respiratory system in the traditional sense. Feel free to use any of this in your own headcanons if you would like :)

BONUS - a gif of all the layers!

[toxooz]

anyway the comic update should be next week (3pgs left) until then a ghillie König warm up scribble bc i finally caved and got the sloth pak and am Obsessed with how much more creepy he looks 😞👐

the pic that started it all:

[akimojo]

i just saw someone call ffxiii overrated like? what?? it's literally one of the most hated games in the franchise wym "overrated" 😭

[scruncheduppaper]

friendship ended with labru now kikimari is my friend 🤝 apologies but the leg pouch comic got to me and now its all i can think about

[hollownest-whore]

I need to write false knight self ship

[aq2003]

omfg . radio play version of much ado with david as benedick from 2001

[fisherrprince]

my venvani post is getting reblogged again and i stand by what i said if u dont come at them with bare minimum homestuck quadrant level "what is going on here" OR MORE i fundamentally believe it to be reductive to their relationship

[moralcandy]

first chip jrwi drawing‼️

[2129888]

i don't remember how i stumbled across this interview but i've never seen anyone mention it so i'm dropping it here <3 it's a little dated but still like super valuable and a decently in depth look at higuchi-sensei's previous works and how she works and thinks as a mangaka... personally i think it's the most i've ever learned from an interview of hers. super interesting stuff :0)

[alangdorf]

Sorryyyy for dropping off the face of the earth; got kinda shy after that last post but mostly I’ve just been writing though I cannot guarantee that any of that will ever be finished (also I’m very insecure about my writing AAAH). Figure I might as well post the valentines I had done (like two months late lol); interestingly this turned into more of a hand lettering exercise than I was expecting lol

[why-the-heck-not]

my thesis advisor asking me to send them my current draft, and me suddenly realizing I somehow haven’t written a single fucking sentence in 2 weeks, dudes it’s a pr nightmare (been hella unproductive the past weeks idk what tf happened)

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

"yes im so fine"

*researches whether i can get my hands on ipecac*

[carpathians]

also beaver hollow makes me so insane for. real reasons but also for reasons i entirely made up. tbh

[p4nishers]

i still can't believe crowley just. let himself be led by hand to do a silly fiction inspired dance with aziraphale. like that's actually a thing that happened in good omens and im insane about it

[termagax]

re: "good girl" i think they say it once randomly as a joke and its just one of those things that gets him wayyy more than they expected it would. so now its their secret weapon and they use it very sparingly and every single time he gets super embarrassed about it but it works ill tell you what.