#original post isn't saying familial! I just got on that tangent because Outlier Tim and milestone traditions

[mzminola]

I do love shoving Tim angst into my face like discount birthday cake, but this flavor of it does have an odd sort of dissonance with Preboot canon (and I assume post-Flashpoint as well) because when you stack the Batkids up, it's not that Tim is an outlier in poor treatment, it's that Dick & Jason are outliers in getting son-treatment.

Dick & Bruce have their decades long history of blurred lines of father-son, mentor-protege, brothers-in-arms, queer-coded make-your-own-family fantasy in an era when marriage wasn't an option, etc. Jason got adopted ASAP. Dick & Jason theoretically had enough year as Bruce's ward/son to establish family traditions.

Tim spent most of his in-universe Robin years as protege/partner to Bruce with no legal familial connections. It doesn't mean there couldn't be familial feelings (Tim & Dick slotted each other into brother roles early) but Tim wasn't regularly living with Bruce, and he compartmentalized hard enough that keeping 'family traditions' as a thing to do with Jack was important to Tim. Being invited to holiday celebrations was nice when Jack & Dana were out of town, getting a birthday cake from Alfred was nice, but it was a much bigger deal that Dana successfully nudged Jack into celebrating with Tim.

Barbara and Helena have their own family shit going on, and whether they get counted as Batkids varies. Jean-Paul Valley is in a cardboard box in the rain.

Stephanie lives with her mom, then in hiding with Leslie, and then her mom again. She has zero familial relationship with Bruce ever, and as far as I remember, never expresses a desire for one.

Cass lived with Barbara, or in her own separate mini Batcave, or in Bludhaven (until it went boom), and for most of Batgirl 2000 Bruce is keeping their relationship strictly Batgirl-Batman = protege-mentor (though he does act like a controlling dad sometimes, which Babs then chews him out for). Bruce doesn't tell Cass his identity and invite her to live in the manor, she figures it out herself and continues to keep living separately. Barbara is who Cass sees as mom/big sis, and who made an effort to give Cass civilian experiences.

Bruce does adopt Cass eventually, and it's couched very similarly to Tim; wanting to give her some stability and a legal tie to the Wayne family. Tim is under 18 and Cass over 18; Tim was already living at the manor by then, and I thiiiiink Cass is not?

Bruce's relationship with Damian is a disaster. If there's any Wayne Family Tradition stuff going on there, it's 100% Dick including Damian in a familial experience, and maybe post-rescue-from-timestream Bruce being nudged into doing it too.

Woobie Outlier Tim is tasty angst in the right mood, but it's not any more canon than Ice Queen Janet. Dick & Jason are the actual outliers, in the opposite direction.

Here's one of my continuity pet peeves. I don't blame anybody for this because continuity is huge, the writers themselves seem to forget this all the time, and WFA especially spreads a ton of misinformation, but it is something that'll make me instantly back out of any fanfic or headcanon that uses it as a basis.

If you create some tradition Bruce celebrates with his kids/Robins at certain points in their development -- especially if you're trying to comment on the Tim's 16th Birthday thing -- and you include Stephanie as a recipient in any way, you are 100% barking up the wrong tree.

Steph became Robin when she was 18. Maybe the last few months of 17 at the very youngest. We know this because she's two years older than Tim, and Tim's 16th was kind of a big deal. Steph's two months of probation (minus the three weeks she explicitly didn't work after the Scarab incident) was the longest she ever worked with Bruce in any capacity, and she didn't even know he was Bruce Wayne at the time. Prior to then her primary contacts were Tim and Cass, with some secondary training via Babs, Helena and the Birds of Prey that Bruce arranged but he only ever contacted her sporadically. After War Games and the Robin kerfuffle that followed she almost exclusively worked with Babs, Dick and Damian.

It's weird because I mostly see this happening in stories that're intended to twist the knife on how differently Tim-as-Robin got treated compared to the others but it just... rubs me the wrong way.