#he's allowed to be flawed and kinda the whole point of red robin is that he's a messy ass teenager working thru complicated feelings

[maxdurden]

look i'm not trying to start beef with timmy stans (thus the lack of tags) but damn. reading red robin now and you always hear tim stans be like "damian was sooo evil, he beat up tim and tried to kill him uwu"

and like. kinda? like yes, damian attacks him first, but only after finding out that tim is surveilling him and waiting for a chance to take him down when he shows his 'true colors'

like if you actually read red robin, it's very obviously a 17 year old who should know better bullying a 10 year old who is (in dicks words) "bleeding a need to be accepted"

it's VERY hard to feel bad for tim here. of course damian is lashing out, he doesn't know how else to cope!! literally go read batgirl v3 issue 17 and then come back and tell me that if tim hadn't been the bigger man (which he's seven-fucking-teen you think he'd know better than to torment someone half his age) damian would have still been a little shit. he wouldn't have. we see the way stephs acceptance and compassion toward him softens him, makes them able to get along.

anyway, thanks for coming to my ted talk. my point is that i'm reading red robin and feeling nothing but protectiveness and sympathy for poor fucking damian

[flipwizardstarlight]

@ladytauria I AM SO GLAD YOU ARE ALL EARS BECAUSE BRO HAVE I GOT SOME THOUGHTS FOR YOU

Okay so starting a little disconnected from the jaytim thing (also gonna put it under a cut cause this got LONG)

my favotire Tarot card is death.

I have a whole plan for a big ass tattoo of the death tarot card that has persephone as the titular figure ("but wait!" You may be thinking, "what about Hades!" Well just wait and let me explain), it will be split down the middle, on one side of her will be the scenery of spring and summer in a forest, green and growing and full of life, and the other side will be the underworld/winter, dead trees and desolation. Her outfit will also be slipt down the middle, the side corresponding to spring will be colored and styled as the queen of the underworld (blood red and black and grey, skulls, a crown of thorns, etc. Powerful and dangerous). The one corresponding to winter will be styled with greens and soft fabrics befitting the goddess of springtime. Because death is both an ending and a beginning. Death as a trot card is the ending of a phase that leads into something new, it is rebirth, it is cycles, a reminder that for every end there is a new beginning too.

(Hades would be the hermit, send tweet)

So you have the goddess of spring, of new growth, who is also intrinsically linked to decay and death, you cannot have one without the other, hence her place on the death card.

Hades may technically rule death but his domain is STRICTLY the underworld side of it, persephone speaks to both sides. Tim has never died so his associations are only the one side but Jason? Jason has BOTH.

Stepping to the side AGAIN but i SWEAR IT COMES BACK AROUND

Went on a whole ass rant in the tags of a post the other day that was more geared towards danny phantom crossover content but holds true to how i feel about Jason and goes right alongside this: I think making it so he stops killing or stops being a crime lord is a damn shame and waters down the aspects of his character and relationships with the other characters that i personally find most interesting. Because part of that dualistic nature comes from how deeply he cares and loves the world and the city and the people around him while still being so capable of such violence. I think blaming his actions entirely on the pit does the same thing. Yeah, he was kinda out of his mind but those actions were still /his/ and i think he should be allowed to be so deeply flawed while still being so compellingly good.

His whole character to me is MADE of the kind of duality that makes up Persephone's mythos. I want to compare the whole Kore to Persephone name change to his Robin to Red Hood one too, but I would need more time to look at the etymology of her names and the transition between them beyond the basic "kore was what her mother named her and after she got married/kidnapped/sold (depending on the telling you are using) she became persephone" thing. Like from a purely mechanical standpoint they line up nicely but sometimes you wanna take a shovel and dig, you know?

And anyway back to the main point of all this: Jason's character is MADE of the same duality that makes persephone. And like, no matter what telling you go with (whether it is the traditional rape of persephone or the more modern retellings-WHICH I HAVE A WHOLE ASS RANT LOADED AND READY TO GO ABOUT HOW SHITTY IT IS THAT PEOPLE HAVE TAKEN TO BEING LIKE "that telling is WRONG and anyone who likes it is WRONG" BECAUSE YES ORIGINALLY IT WAS MORE CULTURALLY SIGNIFICANT TO HAVE HER TAKEN AGAINST HER WILL BUT THE POINT OF MYTHOLOGIES IS TO GROW AND CHANGE AND MATCH THE CULTURAL CONTEXT OF THE WORLD AT THE TIME, SO IT IS INCREDIBLY VALID FOR THE SAME GIRLS (AND OTHERS) WHO ARE READING ABOUT HER AND CONNECTING TO HER TODAY TO SAY "okay but what if we gave her a voice in all of it, and what if that voice didn't quite line up with what anyone else said?" BECAUSE A MAJOR SOURCE OF TRAUMA FOR THEM IS THE WAY THAT THE WORLD HAS WRITTEN OVER AND ERASED THEIR VOICE but imma stop here cause this is already ridiculously long and very off topic.) But anyway no matter what telling you go with I feel like it still fits.

The basic storyline is "persephone runs off alone" (Jason goes to find his mother) -> "persephone ends up in the underworld" jason dies -> "persephone is lost to the people she knew and loved" Jason is dead and then brainwashed/with the LOA -> "her mother greives and rages so hard that it threatens to tear the world apart" honestly a lot of the Bruce vs Jason bullshit fits here but for simplicity sake, bruce falls apart and almost destroys himself and batman -> "she goes back to see her mom" jason Returns! Changed, darker, angrier, but he returns either way! -> "hades is the one to bring her back" this is where interpretation kinda mucks with things but since im partial to the more modern retellings, Tim (as hades) recognizes that in order for Jason to truly heal and for Bruce to heal, they have to reconcile but that it will never be a smooth, easy relationship so he comes up with a compromise -> "persephone eats the seeds" reguardless of his relationship to tim at this point in time, jason makes the concious decision to "eat the seeds" or to admit he needs his dad but knows he has to limit their interactions for it to work so he ties himself to Tim, the person who brought him back, who has seen and handled him at his worst and still respects and cares about and understands him. He ties himself to Tim and by doing so ties himself to the family again without trying to go back to how he was before.

Ultimately, because i am partial to the telling that gives persephone agency, I honestly think that a blend of the original and the modern where persephone does make the choice to go because of how stifled her mother makes her feel that doesn't invalidate her mother's grief, that still ends in the compromise that her eating the seeds forces and allowing the two to reconcile would be the ideal version of the story to make a jaytim au.

Which, i kinda haven't talked a lot about hades=tim but like, especially in the blended version I proposed, if we have Jason end up in the underworld to begin with because of some trickery that isn't Tim's fault (joker anyone?) But could maybe be attributed to him anyway, you get a perfect opportunity to keep the initial antagonism between them, give jason agency in the story while still keeping the traditional non-consentual initial descent, and allow tim to be the one to reach out and bring jason back. Especially if u want reluctant initial bonding, Tim is VERY duty driven, he sets aside his own emotions and wants and needs to do what is right and what is best for others, and in this case getting Jason to go home, even for a short while, is the right thing to do and he is the only one in a position to do it.

Anyway that was a lot and if u need clarification on any of it let me know lmao

For the aak game: jaytim greek mythology au? (Or any mythology really, your pick)

thank you kriz!!!!!

this ended up. so much longer than 5 facts xD i love mythology, esp greek mythology lol.

i played around with a couple of different myths, but eventually i settled on hades & persephone bc. it’s my favorite <3

tim is the god of the dead. it’s a lonely and often thankless job, especially as few of the other gods care to venture into his domain. however, it’s also a responsibility he takes seriously. he’s something of a workaholic, actually, though every so often dick or one of his other friends will manage to drag him away to have some fun.

jason is the god of spring. bruce, king of the gods, is… protective of him. he has been ever since jason’s life was almost taken (or perhaps was; maybe jason was a demigod elevated to godly status after death? idk). it’s something jason appreciated once, when things were fresh, but now… he finds it stifling. he’s constantly escaping to the mortal realm, to spend time around humanity and away from the pressures of mount justice. bruce always drags him back, & they fight. loudly.

when the itch to run off again returns, it’s either during or just after one of tim’s rare visits. he’s never spent much time around tim; viewing him as dour, condescending, and stuck-up. however, he knows that bruce never goes down to the underworld, which means… sneaking off to tim’s is a pretty good way to make sure he’ll be able to actually get away for a bit. for as long as he wants, even.

he thought he’d be able to stay hidden. unfortunately, tim’s power down below is absolute, & jason is noticed as soon as he enters… though tim doesn’t approach until he realizes jason doesn’t intend to leave. jason is sure tim will hand him off to bruce & is initially defensive, but tim is genuinely curious about his presence, & gives him time to explain himself.

though tim is loyal to bruce, he’s never had qualms about disobeying him or even flat out lying to him when he feels bruce is being an idiot. in this case, he definitely feels bruce is being an idiot, and so… he invites jason to stay. jason accepts, gratefully—though suspiciously, too.

jason thought he would grow bored or lonely down here (a small price to pay for his freedom) but… he doesn’t. just like above, there are thousands of mortals to learn from and talk to, but here their knowledge spans the breadth of centuries. they’re happy to share with a willing ear, and jason absorbs their knowledge like a flower sucks up sunlight. if that wasn’t enough, the underworld is large, too; there are so many areas to explore & visit.

tim initially believes he’ll see little of jason. at first, he thinks jason will grow tired of the realm, and leave it. then, when that doesn’t happen, he figures jason will be so busy exploring and talking that he’ll have little time for tim himself. he doesn’t mind, really. it’s nice to have someone pay so much attention to his realm and those in it. even nicer when that someone is a god that tim genuinely admires, even likes. he’s been drawn to jason’s warmth and kindness from the beginning; fallen deeper for his wit & intellect at every meeting he attends. so. he’s content to simply keep a vague eye on jason as he wanders the realm, and not engage further.

jason, however, finds himself getting involved in tim’s side of things, too. a lot of it is bureaucracy, which bruce used to let him help with, but these days—they fight so much its impossible. not that he and tim don’t butt heads, especially at first. tim is used to doing everything himself, and jason is used to being second guessed and having to fight for every scrap of respect he gets. but more and more, they start to work together. tim respects jason, even if he tends to take the reins more often than not without realizing it. before long, they find themselves sort of… co-ruling, without even realizing it.

it’s during these moments—and those outside of it, when jason persuades tim to show him the underworld, instead of stumbling around blindly—that jason finds himself falling for tim. he’s not as dour as jason thought. there’s a sense of humor there; with a bit of an edge, that jason delights in. he’s not stuffy, either. he is condescending, sometimes, but that’s mostly the lack of social skills. jason can work with that. he’s dedicated to his job, to the people he watches over. he’s kind, and smart, and he listens. he challenges jason, too. debating him is fun. he doesn’t try to shield jason from the darker parts of the realm, either, trusting that jason can hold his own. it’s nice. really nice.

so nice that jason loses track of time. bruce has been tearing apart the mortal world, looking for him; growing increasingly frustrated when he can’t find him. it’s causing problems. mortals are dying. tim & jason do notice the influx of dead, but are unaware of the problem—until dick shows up. he figured out pretty quickly where jason went, but has kept his mouth shut so far. he knows what it’s like to need some time away from bruce. but now, with bruce’s temper escalating with his worry, it’s time for jason to come home.

jason is furious when he finds out what bruce has been doing. he storms back up to mt justice, tim in tow, to have it out with bruce. it’s probably their worst fight yet. bruce hates that jason has been in the underworld. at least his power reaches the mortal realm. down there? he has little influence. doesn’t help, too, that many of the gods’ enemies are imprisoned down there, possibly including the one who hurt jason. it goes around & around in circles until finally, jason tells him that bruce can shove it. he’s in love with tim & bruce can’t keep him from leaving.

ofc bruce immediately has to try, decreeing that they’re forbidden from seeing one another. jason just grins. after all, he has an ace up his sleeve. he brought with him food from the underworld—or, more specially, some pomegranate seeds. and while staring bruce straight in the eyes, he swallows six of them.

it’s not just that this is a fruit from the underworld, though. it’s one grown by jason, with his powers. his essence, twined with tim’s. and by swallowing that, he’s bound himself to tim—or, rather, to the place of his power. he is half a creature of mt justice; half of the underworld. now it doesn’t matter what godly decrees bruce makes. he cannot keep jason from his own domain.

away from bruce, jason is a little less confident in his scheme. tim, however, is pleased with jason’s solution. (he maybe found jason’s defiance more than a little attractive, too.) he asks jason if he’d like to make his claim on tim’s domain even more official, and marry him.

jason says yes, obviously.

[ au ask game ]

[bigskydreaming]

IGN’s recent Bat-focused article (Batman: What Does Red Hood Need to Do to Get A Good Story?) praises fanfic writers and also is an amazing critique of how stagnant Jason has become under recent DC management and I’m so surprised at how good it is and how well thought out the solutions were

Hmmm. I just looked it up and I mean, I’m not trying to start anything but I both agree and disagree? Like, it makes some points for sure, I mean, its not like its saying things that I haven’t said a thousand times about Dick, like.....these characters need to be allowed access to a full range of emotions, both good and bad, in order to be fully fleshed out, so I mean yes on that premise alone I absolutely agree this is as true for Jason as it is for Dick or anyone else.

Tbh my only real criticism of the piece is it thinks Jason exists in a particular predicament the other characters aren’t in as well. And that I just don’t agree with, like they kinda lost me a bit with their first paragraph:

His complexities and moral ambiguity make him a compelling and distinct character among his more strait-laced Robin-brothers. Sadly, the character has seen little growth since his rage-filled reintroduction into comics. The ‘former Robin becomes a villain’ idea was enough for DC to coast on for a while but since rejoining the heroes, Red Hood has done little else.

First off, this may just be me being pedantic but I’m ALWAYS going to go fetch a grain of salt before continuing reading anything that pits Jason against his brothers in a war of his moral ambiguity against their strait-lacedness. Because to me, that’s just a fundamentally shallow view of the Batfam that caters to the idea that they each must have their own distinct niche in order to be fully viable individual characters, when a) no, and b) they don’t fit neatly into the niches people keep trying to slot them into and it never ends well for anybody. 

Like Jason is morally ambiguous in a lot of ways too, yes, but umm, even if we assume that the writer is only speaking of Dick, Tim and Damian, we’re talking a guy who beat the Joker to death with his bare hands and has ten assassins and mercenaries on his speed dial and who co-led the Outsiders, a guy who was deeply immersed in weighing the pros and cons of getting revenge for his father by getting Captain Boomerang killed and is forever being DMed by Ra’s because he’s convinced he can get Tim to say He Has Some Points Actually, and the kid who was an assassin with a body count by age ten and who has struggled constantly ever since his debut to define his OWN personal view of morality that is not wholly predicated on what he was taught by any single individual.

And this is a big part of where I part ways with the article, because I think it falls into the same trap that a lot of people do by believing fanfic is inherently better by doing the same thing from just a different angle. Fanfic CAN be better than the canon, I absolutely believe that, I believe it is at times, but to do so, it has to like, BE BETTER. It has to do things differently, and not just paint a slightly different veneer over the same things. Like, pedantic though it might be, I outlined the above issue because its a mode of thinking the canon absolutely falls into again and again, and just like the writer of that article themselves, like....I think fandom as a whole is no different? 

Like, yes there are great stories about Jason out there, some writers have done great and interesting things with him, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a huge trend in fandom of doing the exact same thing I see here.....which is honestly a huge part of the exact same problem the article is decrying canon for......LIMITING Jason (and all the Batfam) by reducing them and their stories to finite niches as a way of spotlighting them as different from their siblings.....except they’re not that different! And that’s okay! They don’t have to be! Families can have lots in common, families DO have lots in common due to like.....shared variables during their formative years. 

I mean Jason was heavily influenced by environmental factors in how and where he grew up before he ever met Batman, but like the article goes into itself, he was no less influenced by Bruce himself as his father figure.....which is something he absolutely has in common with his siblings, thus its not hard at all to see how his siblings could have similar complexities and moral struggles that stem from trying to reconcile Bruce’s influence with the many other things and people that have influenced their childhoods.

And similarly, while the article is dead-on about Jason’s stagnancy....this is something that applies in equal measure to the rest of his family, because they’re all facing the same issues in terms of how DC views and utilizes them, and fandom as much as it likes to condemn DC for doing just that....frequently does the same thing. Like, Jason’s stuck in canon, absolutely......but Dick keeps being popped out into his own microcosm to experience a couple years of stories that essentially turn him into completely different characters isolated from every communal part of his character’s history, and then ERASE everything that’s happened at the end of each of these stories and reset him to square one.....and that’s just a different kind of stagnancy that again, still never allows for actual character progression or development. Tim has LITERALLY been regressed back to Robin, like a hard reset that’s its own kind of stagnancy and Damian has had years of character development upended just to kick him back to where he started, effectively strip away all the connections he’s developed at least in any meaningful way, etc.....and the same holds true for Babs and Cass and Steph and even Bruce himself IMO, in a lot of ways.

Its absolutely a problem, but its a problem that extends far beyond just Jason even if he is a great example of it. And its also a problem that extends into fic itself, and that’s why I don’t agree with a lot of the conclusions that article draws beyond just the fundamental “these characters need to be allowed access to a full range of emotions.”

Yes. That. That right there, THAT I think is crucial, but I think that writer needed to widen the scope a little to take in the full impact of what that actually MEANS for the characters....so as to not accidentally repeat the same problem they’re being critical of by essentially arguing for a full range of emotions for Jason....while still defining or viewing Jason through a finite lens of “the more morally ambiguous Bat character, at least as compared to his brothers.”

Because its that last part that’s so detrimental, because it seems like such a little thing at first, until you realize that essentially its just putting a ceiling, a cap on how far those full ranges of emotions can be expressed. Like the problem with Dick Grayson in canon and fanon is NOT that he can’t be written with a full range of emotions.....its that his character absolutely can encompass a wide range of opinions and viewpoints and emotional stances from “I don’t believe in killing as a first option” to “I absolutely can, will, and have beaten a damn clown to death for joking about murdering my brother”.....and he can still walk away as Dick Grayson after expressing both those things, because his character is big enough to include them both. HE’S not limited as a character, its canon writers and fandom writers that both heap artificial limitations of their OWN on him, say that his character is so defined in such a specific way that there’s no way for the latter expression of his character to actually be IN character.....and the fatal flaw here is fully fleshed out characters are never just one thing. They don’t fit in niches anymore than people do, and notice the problems we all run into when we try and pigeon hole people as being just one thing, like humans can’t be contradictory or act against their own self-interest or be hypocritical or evolve or even regress past prior viewpoints....basically, any time you try and sum up a human being in one line, no matter how accurate that description is, there’s still SOME things that are going to be left out of that picture. 

Now, these things don’t always have to matter that much, like if I look at a serial killer and say that’s a serial killer, like, I might be leaving out of the picture that once he helped an old lady across the street and didn’t kill her and he doesn’t even know why, and I for one, simply do not care that I leave that out of the picture. Its irrelevant to the big picture for me. I can acknowledge that it adds a smidgen of nuance to that particular picture and then go yeah but also I don’t care, nuance denied.

But in terms of fictional characters, these things that get left in the discard pile when we try and sum up characters as just one thing, like, they can be hugely significant, because characters unlike real people, are simply WHAT WE MAKE OF THEM. That stuff that’s been left out of the big picture look at that character because its stuff most people to DEFINE what that character looks like have deemed irrelevant....its still there, and still perfectly relevant for anyone who wants to pick that stuff up and make something of it, use it to change the overall picture or even just point to ways and places that picture can absolutely encompass and include these other elements and STILL fundamentally be that same picture, that same character.

And this isn’t to say that characters can never be written out of character, its to say that usually IMO what ACTUALLY makes the difference between something being out of character and something just being an unexpected but still valid character choice is just.....how these things are executed. The latter is when writers make the effort to JUSTIFY their character choice, to sell audiences on why and how this is absolutely something this character would do, to take them on a journey of what led the character to making this choice and let them see how those steps actually line up, that’s an actual journey that character might take. The former is when writers just don’t bother and are just like, well here’s a thing that character did, and you know it was in character because well that’s the character and that’s what I wrote them doing lol, what more do you want. No. Yawn. Next.

But the trick is if you’re going to try and make a character a SPECTRUM of emotions and choices rather than just a same datapoint recurring over and over again endlessly, a literal sticking point that never advances, never progresses, never changes......you have to actually give that character free range to utilize that spectrum of emotions and choices.....not just confine them to accessing all those possibilities but ONLY within a narrowly defined niche that is its own kind of limitation.

A character can START from a logline, absolutely. Can BEGIN in a narrative niche as a way to INTRODUCE them as seemingly different from their surroundings or their peers when they do not yet have the backstory, the evidence of past stories and character choices readers can use to interpret their actions or guess their choices.....but narrative niches, IMO, are meant to have a shelf life, an expiration date. They’re a seed for characters to grow FROM, to grow PAST, not return to over and over again.....because that’s when a niche just becomes another house that stagnancy built.

Anyway, thanks for the thoughts and the article mention.....it was an interesting exploration of thoughts for me even if I didn’t ultimately agree with a lot of what was already said....still a worthwhile read though I think and I mean hey, its cool if you still agree with it more even if I don’t, lol. This is just my take.

[bat-lings]

i'm reading teen titans (2003) and tim seems really arrogant?? in some issues? do you think tim is arrogant or am i just reading it wrong

He can be a bit presumptuous and even judgmental at times, yes.

[Robin (1993) #52]

[Robin (1993) #56]

Hi she’s poor you’re not, if you truly see this as a moral slippery slope & it bothers you which I can understand maybe pay for the cans yourself instead of lecturing her?

[Robin (1993) #119]

I don’t know where you’re at in TT so just in case, spoilers for issue #11:

[Teen Titans (2003) #11]

Ahem well yes maybe you could’ve suspected that if you gave the veteran who’s been a Titan ever since before you wear tights a little bit of credit?

I like how Kory’s line reminds her experience with the New Teen Titans which emphasizes that Tim was out of place here. Rather than wondering if maybe there was more to Kory’s behavior than what he thinks, he overtly second-guessed her in front of the enemy and gave the actual adult & Titan veteran a whole psychoanalysis about how she shouldn’t let herself be manipulated.

[Robin (1993) #174]

[Red Robin #5]

That one actually makes me smile ‘cause rich kids calling out other rich kids for being sheltered lmao

So yes Tim can be arrogant. In his defense he also has no problem putting himself into question when something or someone makes him realize he’s overstepped or misjudged a situation.

[Robin (1993) #52]

[Robin (1993) #119]

+ Young Justice (1998) #55 that’s totally unrelated to arrogance but that has Tim overtly recognizing he mishandled a situation. I think if he was called out or put in front of his inadequacies more often, he’d never miss to recognize them & apologize for any of them.

By my reading:

Tim takes vigilanting extremely seriously and puts himself to high standards, moral or otherwise. He was also really insecure in his early Robin days but has come to gain confidence & now trusts his own skills. As a rule he’s also earnest about what he thinks.

All of which is mostly a good thing, but it can make him act holier-than-thou when another character’s actions doesn’t immediately makes sense for him. In that case, rather than spontaneously wondering if he’s maybe not seeing the full picture, he tends to assume the worst. Not only that, but he puts himself on a higher ground where he allows himself to judge everything and anything whether it’s his place or not, or he tries to force people into his own personal vision of morality. He lectures others a lot even when he really has no right to.

But once something or someone indicates he’s talking out of place or assuming what he shouldn’t be, he immediately switches to “oh yeah I hadn’t considered that / I was wrong, let’s see how I can fix my mindset or behavior”.

I often say that Tim is self-aware, but in this case the formulation is a shortcut. He needs a push, he rarely realizes he’s overstepped all by himself. But once he got that input, he takes the criticism pretty well and immediately rethinks his behavior:

[Young Justice (1998) #18]

Again he wasn’t being arrogant here (kinda lecturing but mostly the fault is using double-standards) but my point is his reaction when Kon tells him off: "oh wait now that I think about it you’re right" and he immediately alters his approach. Just like when Ava put him in his place or when Cass inadvertently made him realize he was being full of shit in Robin #52 & #119 respectively. Later in TT he recognizes being wrong about Kory too: he can be biased, he can jump to conclusions, but he never lets it keep him from growing out of his bias when evidence tells him he’s in the wrong.

I don’t remember ever reading him looking for excuses or trying to justify himself when he’s been put in front of his own inadequacies. It’s something I really like about him because we’re all flawed, but recognizing our faults and actively working to better them without a fuss takes maturity. As a rule I think a character’s/person’s reaction when they’re put in front of their own faults tells just as much if not more about them as the fault itself.

Tl;dr: yeah Tim can be wildly arrogant, but if that can reassure you he’s not so presumptuous that he’s unable to re-evaluate himself and that’s cool.