#i wouldn't have tagged you this time either had i not mentioned child-prostitute jason

[vivi-scera]

ohhhh i have so many questions to ask now that i apologize beforehand for throwing you questions instead of actually giving a response-reply to your ask 😭

1) “i like thinking about jason-robin's relationship with bruce the most but i like tim as robin best” plss if u could pls elaborate on this? this is so interesting bcs for a second i thought it would be jason robin or even dick robin since hes the first one!

2) ”i think i was mostly thinking bruce/jason since i was talking about johndean” this is interesting too bcs i was hyperfocused on comparing dean’s devotion to dick’s, hence my ask & why i bring dick robin specifically, and now im curious abt your comparison :D

3) “i'm going to be actively problematic and say that bruce sees dick as something less than his partner and something more than his son” is it like what i think it is is it more in line with smth smth owning smth smth *eyes emoji*

4) your tags!! thats interesting too that you prefer jaytim as batcest, instead of like timdick whos more like brothers or jaydick with jason’s “envy” (to simplify it) at dick’s golden boy ness (also to simplify it) which could be a source of conflict between jason & bruce

haha no worries, i did totally set you up.

1.yeah so tim is my favorite robin <3 relatively unpopular opinion to have in my immediate circle apparently. though probably not as unpopular as saying damian is your favorite. but like, tim's the underdog! the odd one out!! he understands the meta-narrative role that robin plays in batman's life and tries to fulfill it. he's such a deeply interesting character not only in how he views himself as the weakest robin/the robin batman didn't choose, but also in how the other robins, canonically, view tim as the best out of them (because he's the most like daddy). i don't mind as much when fanon obfuscates his characterization because he really can be such a blank slate, more or less. as in, meta-narratively, tim decides to be whatever/whoever is best for batman, erasing the part of himself that is tim drake in favor of coalescing with "robin". he's the only robin who really is robin. which is really very tragic if you think about it. but also makes for fantastic bruce/tim fodder :) i would expand more on my love for tim but this ask would get WAY too long. read Liminal Space by Calamityjim on ao3 if you've watched young justice and have read the red robin 2009 run (an EXCELLENT read btw) if you want the gist of the angst.

as for the others, i think jason has had the best character evolution —not just in the batman storyline but as a comic character in general. i really think his death, and to a much lesser extent his rebirth, is the best/most impactful development in all of superhero comic history. superheroes as we know them today would largely not exist without his character. dick is fine, i like him third best. just because he was the first doesn't make him special to me lmao. the fact that others came after him is what makes him interesting to me, in addition to his relationship with batman— which is currently the most interesting batman-robin romantic relationship to me rn. i've seen some insane meta about him around but mostly based on somewhat outdated runs, which really doesn't mean anything when it comes to comics i guess. i don't think he's been in anything interesting/good in over a decade. i also wish i could mail tom taylor anthrax <3 damian is... my least favorite (skipping steph, sorryy i do love her but there's not enough canon for me to have an actual opinion). i think damian's interesting but only as a source of conflict (and ofc his dynamic with dick-batman). he doesn't really stand on his own and he's annoying.

2. i don't necessarily think that bruce/jason is closer to johndean than bruce/dick is (i actually think bruce/tim is closer relatively, but there's not a comparable pairing imo. i also just don't think dick is necessarily "devoted" to batman as much as tim is. his goals, like mentioned, align more with being able to call himself bruce's equal, which could be conflated with desire i.e. in bruce/dick). but there are a lot of functional aspects of the jason-robin & batman dynamic that is parallel to the relationship between dean and john as hunters imo— mostly having to do with consensual practices. is dean/jason-robin in control of his narrative purpose as a hunter/sidekick or are they doing what is necessary to survive? what does it mean for either of them when duty and pleasure are conflated? etc. i really love the headcanon that jason was a child-prostitute, which would be a functional role that carried over in being robin for another older man, so that was mostly where i was coming from. child soldiers... can't get enough of em.

3. haha i don't really know what the "something" is that i was referring to, just some vague middle ground that's gonna go undefined because where's the fun in defining the relationship that a man shares with the preteen ward in his possession who he may or may not want to be his son but who he treats like a spouse because mentally & emotionally he hasn't moved on from the day he was 9 years old and his parents died. maybe dick grows up but bruce never will :'). well, maybe he grows up a little when each robin leaves him

4. and yaaaa jaytim, favorite pairing of all time. they can be enemies to lovers. the ghost and the haunted. rebecca and the narrator. brother-rivals trying to become their father but who are held back by the lack of a quality that the other possesses (see nearmello death note). i'm gonna go the fanon route and say jason was tim's robin (even though, timeline wise, it could totally have been dick). so there is that adoration-envy (that tim would have for jason) that jason would have for dick in jaydick (which is a pairing i also like, don't get me wrong! i just maybe like it as a one-sided thing. or we could have the worst love triangle in the world with damian->tim->jason->dick->bruce all unrequited lmao). but in jaytim there's the addition of the danger element— jason at one point or another did want to kill tim. and not only was jason tim's robin, he was also his ghost story! an example of what would happen to tim if something went wrong. so adoration-envy-fear which transmutes to sexual interest. very sadomasochistic route we could take there. and for jason, tim is the kid who replaced him! who's evidently better at being daddy's favorite! he can die psychosexually mad about it. neither timdick or jaydick have that enemies/lovers edge that i really like (see kurokura hunter x hunter). they also just have some interesting canon history that writers never get into— like batman-jason trying to conscript tim as his robin during battle for the cowl. i am TRYING to write a jaytim fic but i keep getting distracted by other pairings. i thought i was gonna get to it after finishing the one i'm working on but i might just do brudick next so we'll see. send more questions/responses if you have them <3