#i feel like tim's abandonment issues generally have enough play in fandom that i don't have to spend a lot of time establishing them

[silverwhittlingknife]

did nobody ask you for red letter day? absurd! *I* wanna know about red letter day!

hello captain and friend anon!!! I KNOW I HAVEN'T UPDATED THIS IN SIX MILLION YEARS SO THANK YOU FOR THESE ASKS <333

okay SO the first thing is, you have to understand, my list of documents for this fic looks like this:

anyway i do love this fic even though it FIGHTS ME; it's supposed to have both Fights and Mysteries and both are hard to write 😅

anyway hmmm i'm going to cheat by including a Dick POV section that I am probably gonna end up cutting, because i like it but i also worry that it slows down the dialogue?

excerpt below the cut! the only context that you need is that Dick and Tim have been having the "should Tim call if there's danger in Gotham" argument again (Tim's position is "no"), partly because they both have genuine positions on this argument, but also because it enables them to sublimate an emotional conflict into a work conflict and thus avoid talking or thinking about their feelings, which is a shared pathology goal:

Dick would bet Tim never mouthed off to Bruce like this.  One of the many things that suck about being the knock-off Batman is that none of Dick’s orders really stick.  All of the responsibility without the authority to back it up.  At least when Dick was leading the Titans, they did what he freaking told them. …Mostly. …Okay, sometimes. The awful truth is—and he tries not to dwell on it because it’s pointless and doesn’t achieve anything, but—everything with Tim, sometimes it reminds him of the worst times with the Titans.  The same uneasy feeling of dread, like he’s grabbing for someone who’s slipping through his fingers.  Roy’s crossed arms.  The clock creeping toward midnight, staring at the champagne, knowing in his heart that Kory wasn’t coming.  After Tartarus: watching Roy walk out of the room, watching Donna follow him, staring at Vic’s back, Kory’s back, all of them walking out, and no one left but the newcomers.  When the personal is so fucked up that all you can do is double-down on the professional, and even that doesn’t help, and then— (Get a grip, Grayson.) And anyway, this isn’t like the Titans, is it?  Dick was out-of-line, there, in retrospect. He’s never been good at losing people gracefully.  Pushing Kory for marriage when she was already pulling away, trying to cling to her instead of letting her go.  Giving ultimatums after Tartarus, when he knew the team already resented his orders.  Making decisions behind Vic’s back, trying to force him to stay.  It’s an ugly bad habit, picked up from Bruce: things are slipping, and your people are mad at you, so you get scared, and then you get authoritative and controlling so you can hang onto them, except you can’t control them, so then they get even angrier and you lose them anyway.   It’s easy to see in Bruce, hard to see in himself, but he knows it’s there.  He barely managed to catch himself in time, with the Titans.   Is he doing the same thing to Tim?  Does he need to back off? But Gotham is risky.  Tim’s always been capable, obviously, but…it’s okay to be a bit authoritative, isn’t it?  Tim should call if there’s someone who looks unusually dangerous.  That’s just common sense.  Dick’s not asking for miracles, here.

[vanmarkus]

I’m a new fan (yes a post Bi Buck binge watcher, just finished season 5 yesterday ((yes I have a lot of free time)).

And this is definitely opening up old discourse, so feel free to disregard.

But. I struggled so hard to like Taylor. I tried desperately not to do the “toxic slash shipper who hates the girlfriend” thing, but I just could not like her with Buck. I think as a character, she was great! Love a motivated girlboss who pushes buttons, but not so much when she’s being girlboss mean to her boyfriend. (Not that Buck didn’t deserve it once or twice for his late season 5 bs)

But I just don’t know what it was about Buck and Taylor specifically that I didn’t like. I liked Ana and Eddie. I even liked Ali and Buck.

What was the general fandom temperature regarding Taylor and Buck during Season 5?

hoooo okay.

so first of all, welcome to the fandom, hope you can find fun people to hang out with 💛

mind you, I wasn't around during season 5, I was lurking in the trending tags so I kinda knew what was going on with buddie in general lmao but I only actually watched the show in august (took me less than 2 weeks to binge it all the way through, so believe me I know how you feel) but Taylor Kelly is... well.

let me just start by saying that I love Taylor, but she feels like she's been written by two different writers room (which is actually kind of the cast because Tim wasn't around during season 5) and while I love her bossy, career driven characteristics, I felt mad about how dirty she was done.

and not even because Buck kissed some else, but because she straight up said (paraphrasing) "you cheated on me? i don't think you should've told me about it, that's not why i'm mad" and like. what?

for a strong, confident woman in a committed relationship to just say it's okay if you cheat on me, I don't care, just don't tell me? ngl that gutted me a little bit.

aside from that, Taylor and Buck was never going to work, partially because they are too similiar (work oriented, childhood trauma and abandonment issues that neither of them worked through, implied that they both had a bit of a slutty phase, etc) and partially because their moral codes are the thing that differs the most.

which we knew to begin with; Taylor was introduced as someone who would exploit Bobby's acid trip about his dead family to get ahead in her career. that is a good enough reason not to like her and I personally think that Eddie had his reservations about her for that exact reason.

they both live for their jobs, but Taylor is in it for the chase, the excitement, the recognition; Buck is in it because being a hero and helping people is his life. very stark difference.

Buck also jumped the gun with the moving, right after doing something that you don't normally do when you feel like taking the relationship to the next level. so he kinda put a strain on the relationship even though it seemed otherwise at the time.

then of course Taylor lied to him about working on the story, though she only broke it after they caught Jonah, so people saying that she endangered Hen and Chim are weird, unless they're implying that she followed them and didn't call 911? which would be a choice...

but back to fandom's reception of her and how you don't like her with Buck. you don't have to like her at all tbh, not every character or dynamic will be likable to everyone and that's fine, it's only an issue when people spend their time on hating a fictional character instead of focusing on the ones they like and when they send hate to the actors portraying them... which is something that as far as I'm aware happened to every single actress/actor who played a love interest to Buck or Eddie on the show.

this fandom hates women in general, just look at how most people talk about Shannon, Maddie, Abby, Ana, Taylor, Natalia, Marisol... like. characters are flawed that's why they're interesting, but hating them for having to make decisions in difficult situations? or for literally nothing but dating one of the guys as is the case of Ana and Marisol (though Marisol's actress is a vile human being and her character has a seemingly weird bond with her brother, so there is that).

I'd argue that Taylor is the most hated female character on the show and I regularly see posts that feature her with tags like "taylor kelly jumpscare" and such which I just find excessive...