#i just have opinions on this awful issue & everything it's done to canon and fanon

[aalghul]

What really exasperates me is all of the “Titans Tower AU” fics where like, Jason finds Tim at the Tower hurt or sad or whatever, being pathetic, and just starts motherhenning him, or suddenly feels bad about what he’s doing, or Tim is so sad and apologetic and offers to give Jason back Robin and just wants him to come back to the family and insists that Really Bruce does love him and missed him, and somehow that makes everything better and sunshine and rainbows. And it’s just so dumb and I can tell none of these people have read UTRH, and some of them I’m not even sure have read the actual Titans Tower attack, because even putting aside the Jason characterization, Tim is vastly different than any of that in the actual issue

Fanon Titans Tower AU Tim: Bruce misses you so much 🥺🥺🥺 pls stop killing people 🥺🥺🥺 do you want Robin back I am just a placeholder and no one actually wants me 🥺🥺🥺

Canon Tim During The Titans Tower Attack: What The Hell Is Wrong With You 😡😡😡 Fuck You You Crazy Ass Bitch 😡😡😡 I AM Robin 😡😡😡

And they make excuses for mistreatment of Jason in canon by canon. Like the “Bruce really did love you and Batman NEEDS a Robin even though the last one died horribly,” but also (I have done my research reading some of these fics bc I like to know what to be mad about) there’s one fic out there that, in response to there not being a statue for Jason in the Tower, was like “no no no, the Titans didn’t really do anything wrong! There’s a shrine to Jason just around the corner out of sight where you can’t see it! He wasn’t really forgotten! So now he can stop being angry” and it’s just like. What’s the point of this what is this meant to accomplish

Literally. Tim did not once in that entire fight act like what TT AUs want. I think these panels should prove that he is nothing like what fanon thinks. Tim literally says he thinks he’s the better Robin between him and Jason (in an issue that’s literally just him getting his ass beat effortlessly lol). What more do I need to say?

The context for these panels is that Jason had talked about people saying Jason didn’t have what it took to be Robin, but Tim did. By saying yes, Tim’s saying he thinks he’s the better Robin. Doesn’t fit very well with the insecure baby people think Tim is, now does it?

Let’s talk about the statues actually. I think he was right to be pissed as an actual Titans member because every other fallen Titan, despite their moral alignment or current living/dead status, got a statue but not him. Keep in mind that he was a Titan because Donna invited him. He helped her learn to have faith in herself as a leader, instead of assuming he (child) would lead them (adults) the way Dick did when he was Robin. Literally in his first mission with them. He was the first child hero to die in a way that made a major impact, especially on the Titans because Dick couldn’t train other children with a clear conscience. He was a Titan and he mattered. I know that his anger over being forgotten is part of the manchild personality that’s been ascribed to him, but it’s justified. Maybe not so much beating a child, but hurting children is ooc for children and Titan’s Tower beatdown never should’ve happened.

(I also read a bunch of them a while ago because I saw some people saying they loved them while others were saying they sucked. Anyways, I know the fic you’re talking about. What’s worse is that the tiny, hidden in a corner shrine was started by Tim rather than anyone that actually knew and loved Jason too.)

Obvious issues with Jason’s characterization in the actual issue aside, even the way that transfers over into these fics is so wrong. If Jason is so set on killing this kid (which he wasn’t, btw. He was never aiming to kill. Proof? Tim’s still alive), why is he all of a sudden going soft because “he had bags under his eyes/is this his 6th cup of coffee/his parents neglect him”?

I don’t understand why stories trying to make Jason sympathetic to Tim forget the singular instance in this entire issue when Jason tries to explain to Tim how Bruce is manipulative in his methods of convincing you to be Robin. The potential for Tim being more hurt by these words than the beating (or a spar, Green Arrow crossover style, if Jason was written correctly) is so much more interesting than two characters acting & interacting in ways they would never. Jason talking about how Bruce said these things to him, how Bruce wanted him as Robin, as the light to his darkness, as compared to how Tim forced himself into that role is far more compelling to me.

While Jason believing Bruce replaced him is canon, him not knowing about why is not. He says himself that he knows the reason Tim became Robin is because he saw that Batman needed a Robin to pull him out of the dark, he just doesn’t believe that that’s true. As he says in the first panel above, he thinks that Bruce is letting Tim think this way in order to use him.

The only time that Tim tells Jason anything remotely like “Bruce cares about you” is when he tells Jason that Bruce was holding back (untrue on so many counts) because he blames himself for Jason’s death, not the same as because he loves Jason, and then Tim says that he won’t hold back like Bruce. And then proceeds to get his shit rocked, but that’s not the point.

The only time Tim himself acknowledges Jason as his predecessor was to say that he made his life difficult by, uh, being dead. Because it made it harder to try out for Batman’s dead son’s old role. I understand that this one might just be old frustrations bubbling up while Jason’s attacking him, I just think it’s worth noting that these were the only feelings Tim had towards Jason as Robin in this issue.

All of these fics also seem to agree that Talia is an evil, manipulative villain that twisted Jason’s mind to make him do any of this despite that not being canon whatsoever. The exact opposite happened, really, since Talia was worried about Jason’s reaction to Tim being Robin. But whatever because we need a convenient way to absolve the white boy of all blame, right?

[bigskydreaming]

Hi! I was reading a fanfic and it brought up Roy and Dick's fight, which I see a lot of in fics but never what they fought about and consequently why they don't talk. I thought it was a vague excuse/reason why Roy was Jason's friend not Dick's anymore but this fic brought up when Dick was batman so I was wondering if there was actually a fight between them? Btw I really enjoy your metas! They're v thought out and well articulated. Also it's v easy to separate what's your opinion and what's fact which is. Very helpful for me

Yeah this is one hundred percent a fanon thing that's kept deliberately vague to justify why Roy in his friendship with Jason seems to have no positive thoughts or concerns about Dick whatsoever. Now granted, Dick and Roy are not nearly as close in the New 52 as they were pre-Reboot. The lack of their friendship there is definitely one of the things I disliked most about the Reboot - and I actually don't care if Jason and Roy are friends tbh, its the total erasure of his history with Dick as if he can't be friends with both, that like, bugs most.

But so like, yeah, Roy and Dick aren't super close when they interact on the Titans in the New 52, but there's literally nothing in any of their interactions that explains the complete absence of him from Roy's life or a reason that Roy would like, hate him the way he tends to in a lot of Jason-centric fics.

When you factor in pre-Reboot stuff though, it starts to get a LOT more.....uh wyd? And this is why I have trouble buying that people just write Roy and Jason the way they do because its the only thing they know from recent comics. Like one, most fans talk about how they don't even read the source comics, so there's no reason their knowledge of the characters or events would be limited to just recent comics if they're going off wiki summaries and scans anyway. And second, most fans AREN'T limited in their knowledge to just recent comics.

Like, the second people start writing Roy and Jason and Kori but with their pre-52 characterizations and references to events from THAT timeline, it all gets very messy, the way they're like, completely antagonistic towards Dick a lot of the time. Because Roy and Dick were always solid. Yes, they fought. A lot. But they always, ALWAYS made up afterwards. They had conflict about Roy's drug addiction - it didn't stop Dick from being there to support him through rehab, or Dick being the first person Roy called to help him get Lian after he learned of her existence. Dick literally held Lian before Roy ever did? He's the one who first put her in Roy's arms for the first time.

(Which is the prime grudge I and most Dick Grayson fans have about Roy and Jason fics which make Jason like, the absolute apple of Lian's eye. If you want to expand Lian's circle of loved and trusted ones to include Jason as Roy's friend and thus her uncle, like go for it! But there's zero reason that should require invalidating and erasing the fact that Dick was this little girl's adored godfather and uncle for pretty much her entire life. And the way Dick is just shoved offstage from Lian's life entirely, to slot Jason into his place as though they're completely interchangeable, its like....THAT'S the kind of thing that gets people irey about how Jason 'steals' Dick's dynamics and character relationships.

Because there's nothing saying they both can't be major players in Roy and Lian's lives! But just that they're not interchangeable! You need to develop the specific role Jason plays there WITHOUT just overwriting everything Dick actually did in relation to the two of them pre-Flashpoint, which is what you're drawing from the second you write Lian, unless you're specifically going with the few appearances we've had of her within literally just the last year.

But I mean, when people just search and replace Dick Grayson in all Roy and Lian's pre-Reboot stories and act like Jason was the one doing all of that instead.....why wouldn't fans of the source material be annoyed by a character getting credit for interactions and things done for Lian and Roy that Jason literally NEVER DID, while at the EXACT SAME TIME, conjuring some mysterious, unnamed 'Falling Out' that Roy and Dick had, that was clearly all Dick's fault, and resulted from him being basically excised entirely from Roy and Lian's lives?

Same with Kori, for the record, and like despite being Dick's ex, she and Dick have NEVER been like, estranged? She and Dick have often been close even after their breakup. None of it makes any sense, and the fact that a lot of fans don't even try to make it make sense or justify it, and expect other fans to just be fine with settling for an inexplicable reversal of Dick's every actual dynamic with these characters while setting up Jason to occupy the exact same role Dick played in these other characters' lives, like.....lol. Its fun.)

Anyway, back to your question, like, there are fights you can go with pre-Reboot as the source of various conflicts between Dick and Roy - but again, I maintain its just as crucial that they're always written as getting past them. They have a very tempestuous relationship because they are the two people MOST likely to call each other on their shit, two of the two people WITH the most shit in common due to the parallels in their childhoods and the roles they've occupied in the Titans and the superhero community in general, and the two people most resistant to being called out on their shit by each other, lol. Mostly in that case because like, they do recognize that they have a lot in common and understand each other very well, so the second the other is calling them out for something, they're usually like "ugh, if HE'S saying this, its probably true and I am just not prepared yet to be wrong about this. I need more time being unjustifiably rawr about things." Its like that thing where they both look at each other doing something that feels familiar or calls back to their own reasons for doing something and they're like ugh I'm in this picture and I don't like it.

So they clash. A lot. But always with the implicit bedrock of like, there's nothing either of them can do or say to the other that will push the other away for good.

They fought over Roy replacing Dick as leader of the Titans when Dick's wedding fell apart, even though Roy actually didn't want to do it and was kinda pushed into it by the government, but again, Dick like, got over it and realized it was for the best and forgave Roy for it that very same issue. And on and on. It always went like that. So there's plenty of stuff that can be used or pointed at as a source of conflict between the two, but the part I'll always call unbelievable is the idea that they never make up after one of these fights. Why now? What fight, specifically, is so bad between them that despite everything else they've gone through AND gotten past, they can't get past this one? Y'know?

So yeah, that's my take on this. There is no definitive falling out between Dick and Roy as many fics like to point to in order to shove him offscreen and make room for Jason in Roy and Lian's lives, and personally, I just don't find it necessary and I actually think it makes Roy look REALLY bad. Because when you're not specifically detailing all the things that Dick has actually DONE for Roy, the lengths to which he's been there for his friend, and like, specifically invalidating each and every one of them as something that never happened in a particular fic, then literally anyone who reads that fic and has their own awareness of Dick and Roy's friendship is kiiiiiinda likely to be reading that and thinking wow what an ungrateful asshole, when Roy's just written as bitching about Dick with Jason and sandbagging him without any real explanation as to WHY, beyond just 'oh they had a fight years ago.'

(And coming up with some random awful thing that Dick did to justify Roy hating him now isn't like, a superior alternative, lmao, because again, its still just trashing one character for the sake of getting him out of the way of two other characters' friendship and people are going to think what they think about that).

Anyway, my now standard stock disclaimer that like, there doesn't actually need to be a canon fight obviously, for people to just write things this way and handwave that Dick and Roy had an epic falling out years ago and now they just hate one another or whatever, or just Roy hates him or vice versa. Obviously people are free to do what they want. They don't need a reason other than "I want to write it this way so Jason and Roy are friends and Jason doesn't have to 'share' him with Dick or have his friendship be overshadowed by their greater history together." That just happens to be a reason that no Dick Grayson fan is ever really going to be happy about, lol, for what should be perfectly obvious reasons, so it honestly shouldn't be surprising to people that fans of the source material often gripe about it.

Because yeah fanfic is a tremendous opportunity to transform the source material into something better, but if what's better for some fans actively takes away what was working perfectly well for other fans the original way, they're going to say that. Especially in a fandom where so many new fans take their view of the characters and their dynamics from fics rather than the source material - when fandom has that much of an influence on what new fans perceive to be 'canon,' fans are perfectly within their right to emphasize what is ACTUALLY canon and what isn't, so that new fans at least have the opportunity to determine for themselves what take they want to go with, instead of just accepting at face value that the nature of say, Dick and Roy's relationship is just that Roy hates Dick because of some mumble mumble ancient history vague mumble details not found mumble mumble fight.

[theghostofashton]

hi! hope you're doing good :) what about quinn and alex karev for the character thingy (idk if you like karev tbh, but I like him so)

hi thank u sm!! i'm sorry this took a minute, last week was...a mess.

quinn:

How I feel about this character

i love her so much. she's beautiful and inspirational and she deserves the entire world.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

...rachel. i'm kinda indifferent on quick. it's fine and if quinn had to end up with a man, i'm glad it was puck, but i much prefer faberry. i know that's kinda a contentious opinion partly bc of how blatantly queerbait it was, but i genuinely feel like it would've done both characters so much good and made so much sense after we lost finn.

i've read so many faberry fics that interpret canon perfectly and make it work, and i love what they do both with rachel and quinn's characters. they make each other better and understand each other in a way i just didn't see with st berry, quick, or finchel.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

mercedes, santana, and blaine but that's fanon

i have nothing new to add about quinncedes. we deserved more of it. it was so pure and perfect and i will die mad that we got absolute dust after like s1.

i talked abt this in my santana post but i really love them as friends because of how honest and authentic their friendship is. they call each other out in ways that i feel like work bc they're things that would make each other better. santana saying quinn keeps defining herself with men in 4x08 was absolutely right and it's something i only feel like santana would've said. i just appreciate the realness of quinntana. everyone needs a no bs call it like it is friend.

My unpopular opinion about this character

she would make way more sense if people stopped writing her off as "crazy quinn" and actually took the time to understand the way her actions are the result of everything she's been through. i've seen no issue w people using headcanons and speculation to understand other characters so don't act like it's hard to do for her lmfao people just choose not to (which is fine if you don't want to but don't act like she makes no sense when she does)

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

i wish we'd seen her story after s3. what did she major in at yale? what does she end up doing? i also wish they'd actually called it post partum depression that she was struggling w from s2 onward and made those terms of her story more explicit if only so people could stop calling her a crazy serial cheater lmfao

alex karev:

How I feel about this character

dude omg karev is my favorite grey's character!! he is everything and his development is just...there's this fan vid i watched a while ago that encapsulates all of it and it made me cry because they did this so right. it was gradual and subtle and made things so much more satisfying. i'm still in awe that they managed to make fuckboy alex karev w plastics dreams into the most amazing pediatric surgeon ever and it makes me cry.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

jo. they are so fucking perfect and they fit so well and they made each other better people and i will die mad that the writers fucked them up so badly

My non-romantic OTP for this character

mer, cristina, and arizona. all three of them were so important to alex in such different ways and watching how their relationships developed was beautiful. especially mer, after cristina left, the way she and alex got closer, and the entire thing with arizona. i just love his friendships w everyone but these three felt so instrumental to his development for me.

My unpopular opinion about this character

i hated his relationship with izzie and never believed in it lmfao

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

they'd written him off better. i honestly would rather they have killed him than what we ended up getting which says a lot