#photographer! tim drake

[mantimae]

His stalker tendencies and general disregard for his own safety are so charming :)

[ahfrickenfrick]

AITA for stalking my now family members AGES ago

by u/no-spleen-attached

this is now apparently a HUGE problem in my household?? and I really don’t see the reason why?

when I (17M) was 9 I was left to my own devices a lot so of course I took up photography, and specifically taking pictures of the cities nightlife

and idk why but one night i saw my neighbors out and about and it caught my interest and I started taking photos of them and just idk following them around?

anyways because a bunch of stuff happened with family and the neighbors ended up taking me in, and it’s been like five years since I’ve stopped and I guess I thought they knew?

like I was literally nine following them how did they NOT see me? thought it was the whole reason they took me in tbh

so when I joked about it, they were like ‘what do you mean’ and i explained it and they were horrified, especially when i brought OUT some photos of them like tripping on curbs and stuff like that

apparently that’s ‘really wrong’ and ‘no sane person would do that’ and one that kept popping up ‘why do you still have these’

ANYWAYS so aita? I’m just really confused rn

[azaablue]

@redsray said that Tim doesn’t stop taking pics of heros after he becomes Robin which is so right and it got me thinking about how after Robin is taken from him he has this moment of conflict and irritation bc on the one hand his great dream was stripped away and on the other he has a responsibility to his blog followers to take updated photos of the *sigh* new Robin

[nana-mizu-shiki]

Oh No, the thing that I just said is apparently one of the things that other people Don’t Think Is Okay that I didn’t realize, and Now I’ve Made People Sad And They’re Wasting Emotions On Me, but it’s FINE, really, it is.

Tim is so me here

This is in a later chapter, but I loved the fic, especially the way it ended and the way the characters developed. This fic really went into stalker and photographer Tim btw, so if you like that, 👍 👌

[excarow]

Barbra knows many things in the way the old Librarian character has the exact knowledge the protagonist needs

Tim knows many things in the way that the comedic relief's crack conspiracy theory was proven correct in the final act

[wormofglass]

i love photographer tim drake because i am literally in college for photography so its impossible not to.

i imagine he takes HUNDREDS of self-portraits. he has a huge collection of works that are images of him as red robin. just like the most gorgeous self-portraits he can never release publicly because of his secret identity. he also takes self-portraits of himself as just tim because duh and those he does make public collections of. he is literally so rich so i figure he has like huge budget sets he makes for images. he probably also has expensive ass cameras and darkroom materials.

if people know photography i’m thinking his biggest inspirations are people like larry sultan, gregory crewdson, but also like claude cahun, cindy sherman, sally mann, AND ABSOLUTELY ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE AND RALPH MEATYARD

i also imagine him doing a lot of street photography/flash photography like weegee or jacob riis

this post is fully self indulgent mixing 2 of my hyperfixations

[ikiprian]

Tim Drake’s got a history with cloning. So does Vlad Masters.

Tim is past his “cloning-deceased-best-friends-in-the-basement” phase. Really, he is. But back when he wasn’t, he’d had all sorts of research compiled, on every type of cloning tech ever recorded.

One company, VladCo, had negotiated itself an amount of Cadmus’ exclusive resources to study the interactions between cloned tissue and recently-discovered ectoplasm. The quasi-sentient abilities of ectoplasm, in theory, might help fill a host body with a real soul.

The contract Tim had dug up is frankly insane. VladCo is in no way beholden to share the results of its study, nor does it need to return any of the equipment, and VladCo’s relationship with Cadmus is under a strictly worded gag order. Nobody in their right mind would’ve signed it. Cadmus did, and aside from a few million dollars, Vlad Masters got his machines gratis.

And now, a couple years after the contract was signed, fulfilled, and buried away, VladCo has done a grand total of nothing with it.

The guy’s rich. And a genius. There’s no way all that tech’s been left to collect dust in storage with how aggressively it was acquired. Masters was going to do something with it, and it was going to be revolutionary. (Tim had actually planned to steal into VladCo for notes, before the thing with the Brain, and Cassie finding out, and the intervention that followed… yeah. He’s over it.)

It’s suspicious as all get out. Eventually, though, the whole Masters deal took a back burner to a crisis (followed by a crisis… followed by a crisis).

But now with Kon and Bart back, and a few less things on his plate, Tim thinks the responsible thing to do is finally head a classic Team investigation to Master’s Manor, Wisconsin.

[thatshadowgastwhore]

I have a lot of headcanons that are contradictory in nature, but no matter what version of Tim Drake I’m thinking about, he always has a photographic or eidetic memory

[lovelesslittleloser]

Eddie Brock: news reporter

Peter Parker: photographer

Tim Drake-Wayne: photographer

I think I have a good idea for a new fanfic, you guys

[thewaynesandassociates]

timmy has date night with kon. he's PRAYING bruce doesn't pass by on patrol

[ahfrickenfrick]

love the idea that batman is thought to be a cryptid, and most pictures are really blurry and look doctored (most are)

and that tim is the first person to get a clear picture of batman and then robin. he always thinks about posting them; but then never does,

and then he soon becomes robin, slinking through the dark, leaving whispers and laughs in people’s ears, keeping the idea of the cryptid family alive

[ifjenn]

[silverwhittlingknife]

I noticed something in a lot of your Dick and Tim fics. It's probably so obvious, but you always write that Tim is watching Dick. In your newest one, Tim's watching Dick, in The Return Tim's watching Dick, and you even write that Tim is always watching him. Is Tim trying to read Dick? Trying to understand? Or does he understand him by watching? What is he trying to figure out by watching Dick? What does that say about Tim? I really hope this is intentional lmao because I would be embarrassed. Maybe this is just something so obvious that I'm just getting now.

YES IT’S ON PURPOSE <333 Anon. Anon. I'm so sorry this answer took forever, but listen, this was a really delightful ask <333 I think about this a lot.  I really love origin stories—I like stories that resonate through a character’s history. 

And for me, a whole lot of what interests me about Dick and Tim is that theme of watching and being watched. Seeing and being seen.

"Watch me on the trapeze, Tim. I'm going to do my act...'specially for you." | "Timmy, don't look." | "I turned away... I couldn't watch. Then I heard you crying and I turned back... I'm sorry, Dick. I didn't want to hurt you by telling you all this." Dick's watching me. Gauging my reactions. (Tim watching Dick watching Tim!) | "I'm taking off the blindfold." "No!" | "I can't see him. You can't see him. But I know Robin. And Robin's always there when you need him." | I love that kid. Too much to let him see me like this. (But Tim spots him anyway.)

Spotlights and lighthouses and cameras and photographs. Blindness and vision and masks and detective work and trust.

I'm going to try to be coherent about this but it's gonna be incoherent sdfsf BUT I'M GOING TO TRY so. Below the cut, a really long grab-bag of my rambling on vision and watchers and watching.

Tim + watching / Dick + being watched / different dynamics

Tim's origin story

Being watched goes with vulnerability/exposure

Incomplete list of moments with Dick and Tim and vision

Tim + watching

The first time we see Tim's face in LPoD: a close-up on his eyes looking for Dick, a close-up on his eyes at the moment that he sees Dick, a pullback to his face at the moment of recognition, a pullback to his face + his camera (you could maybe even argue that Tim comes into existence at the moment that he sees Dick, like, conceptually. the act of seeing is his defining characteristic. it is the thing that makes his character happen. he is the kid who's watching.)

Tim's a very vision-centric character: he's first introduced as a camera, then as a pair of binoculars, then as a pair of eyes. His whole backstory is about watching: watching Dick's parents die, watching Dick on TV, watching Batman and Robin. I've grabbed a few panels above with Tim watching Dick but there are so many more. His major deductions are all vision-based: he sees Dick-the-acrobat and later recognizes Dick-as-Robin; he sees Bruce-in-the-past and recognizes him as Bruce-of-our-time; the climactic moment in Red Robin is about going into a dark cave with a torch so he can see what's there.

And he's a detective. He pries into secrets. He analyzes people. He's a worrywart and a fusser who always wants to understand what's going on with other people. In a lot of those panels where Tim's watching Dick, his inner monologue is busy deducing Dick's emotions and trying to psychoanalyze him. Tim's caring and watchful and intuitive... but all those qualities also make him very very intrusive.

Dick + being watched

Dick performing acrobatics for Bruce, Donna, and Tim in Detective Comics 38 (his first appearance), New Teen Titans 16, Batman 441, and Nightwing 88 (where he reflects he's glad to be back in the hot glare of the spotlight)

Dick's a detective too, of course - Tim deliberately mirrors Dick, both in-universe and out-of-universe. But also Dick's a performer who loves being watched and also wants to control how he's seen. He gets a kick out of showing off, making puns, kicking ass, taking names, and he gets a kick out of having an appreciative audience. And he's got a kind of yearning for recognition - it hurts, when Bruce won't look at him, and in fights with Bruce, Babs, Roy, he'll often bring up the past, trying to get them to acknowledge a shared history.

At the same time, he's a very private person who withdraws and hides and pushes people away when he's upset. Right before Tim shows up, Dick's just ghosted the Titans because he's having emotional turmoil and doesn't want to have it in front of them, and they're trying to respect his wishes... but that solitude doesn't last long, because then Tim tracks him down. Tim will do this again when Dick's having an emotional crisis and trying to avoid everybody in Nightwing 110.

Possible dynamics

Tim watches Dick in Robin 11, while silently analyzing Dick's anxieties about Two-Face

"The watcher and the person being watched" is a dynamic that really interests me, partly because it can be so complicated?

You can see in Dick and Tim their very first roles: enthusiastic performer and the enthusiastic audience member. Dick likes to perform and show off and entertain; Tim likes to watch; those are roles they both easily slide into and they have a lot of fun together! But also you can look at the harsher side: the crime victim and the voyeur, the amateur photographer and the guy who hates being photographed. Dick's intensely private about his vulnerabilities; Tim's intrusive and watchful and constantly trying to figure out how other people tick. Sometimes Tim's the caring friend who watches Dick closely, reads him well, understands him; sometimes he's the nosy mini-detective who pries into Dick's secrets. And that's just two different ways of describing the same thing!

One of the things that kinda fascinates me about Dick and Tim's relationship is that in a lot of ways it's built on a bunch of low-key boundary violations. A lot of their early relationship is driven by Tim's desire to know more about Dick vs. Dick's reluctance to get close to anyone from Gotham; Tim's often out-of-line, but without his pushiness, it's hard to see how they would've developed a relationship at all. Later on, their friendlier relationship is marked by Dick teasing and low-key bullying Tim; it's pretty obvious that Tim isn't actually bothered by this, but it does involve Dick ignoring whatever Tim's claiming he doesn't like ("Quit it!" "Shh").

And one of the aspects of those boundary-violations is that Tim has a habit of witnessing things that Dick would prefer that nobody see. Tim's a witness to Dick's first and most miserable tragedy; he sees the aftermath of some of Dick's fights with Bruce; he's there when Donna dies. And he's sharp and observant and analytical, and I like to imagine this as being something Dick's not entirely comfortable with.

When Dick first meets Tim, it's before he's learned to wear a mask. And Tim spends a lot of time trying to see through Dick's masks, and he's pretty good at it, and a lot of that prying comes from love and care, because one of the ways that Tim shows love and respect and admiration is by trying to absorb absolutely everything about you, like a little sponge. But there's also something unsparing and even threatening about the search for the truth of someone else. It can be comforting or threatening, to know someone's watching you.

And I love how all that complexity is wrapped up in Tim's origin story? Both the giddy childish "Watch me on the trapeze" and then the awful grim reality of what Tim actually sees as a result and then the difficult connection when Dick and Alfred finally get Tim to explain how he knows their secret identities.

Tim's origin story

Tim (recounting his origin story in LPoD): My parents held me back as the thing moved to you. I cried out to warn you. (Two panels where we see just Tim's eyes, as he watches a crying Dick. He sees Batman approach and start trying to comfort Dick.)

I think fiction sometimes presents "being understood / seen / known" as an uncomplicatedly good thing, and there's nothing wrong with that! But I like complications, and I like the way Tim's origin story frames that moment of witnessing as difficult and fraught. Tim doesn't want to tell Dick how he knows their secret identities because he thinks it'll hurt Dick to know it: I don't want to hurt you, Dick, and I'm really afraid I might. And he's not wrong. It is painful; it does hurt; it's not something Dick's happy to know.

Dick's a very private person, and there's a painful intimacy to Tim's origin story - it's not Tim's fault he was there, but at the same time, it's not like Dick chose to have the most traumatic moment of his life on stage in front of an audience of strangers, you know? It's kind of a violation. In NTT/NT/Nightwing, Dick's pretty violently hostile to photographers, and he's intensely private about trauma in general, and I like to imagine this as partly a reaction to that foundational trauma of losing the most important people in his life and also doing it publicly.

And Tim's part of that audience. And he sees the worst part, the part that Dick can't talk about. He sees the bodies and the blood. He has nightmares about it for years. He hears Dick crying and sees him holding onto his parents' bodies. Not at all the kind of first impression Dick would want to make. Not at all the kind of person he wants to be seen as. And that understanding can be painful, because it's so close to the bone, and when Tim's just a stranger, it's upsetting, because Tim knows things that Dick would never have chosen for him to know. Their few conversations about it are awkward partly because Tim's thirteen and awkward... but at the same time, it's not Tim's fault so much as the situation! There's no way for Tim to talk about what he saw that wouldn't be uncomfortable for Dick.

... And yet, and yet. Tim's also one of the last people to see the Graysons alive. He sees Dick and his parents together; he even takes a picture with them. He remembers the whole thing so vividly he'll recognize Dick's somersault years later. He sees the grief. And so I think of that connection as kind of a metaphor for witnessing. Tim sees these things and they become real; Dick can't hide from them; in the act of being seen he's caught, he's in a spotlight, all the grief made real. You can't hide, that way. And Tim's got this unforgiving memory; he won't ever forget; he won't ever stop knowing.

But then, too: Dick's seen, he's known. Even at the very beginning, when Tim doesn't know enough to understand what he knows, he knows the important things.

So that shared memory is a barrier and a bond between them. It can be a source of discomfort or a source of comfort. And that's how I think about Tim watching Dick in general - it's complicated, and sometimes Dick's glad of it, and sometimes he resents it, and also it just is, it's a fact of Tim, that Tim watches. It's notable when he's not watching, when he's turned away.

Being watched goes with vulnerability/exposure

So I'm going to talk about the fraught feeling of being watched more in a little bit, but first: I think it's fascinating that Dick likes screwing around with games where Tim can't see!

Here's Nightwing 25 - Dick's come up with the idea of trainsurfing while blindfolded:

Tim: Are you sure this is such a good idea? Dick: Shh! Listen. Tune into the changing sounds and - Tim: I'm not so - Dick: JUMP!

Here's Robin 49 - clambering through a tunnel into No Man's Land:

Dick: Hard not to think about the river. All the water above us. And bugs. This tunnels' probably full of 'em. And rats. Big ones. Big blind rats with teeth as long as -

Here's Gotham Knights 9 - ambushing Tim in a sorta game of hide-and-seek:

Dick: Gotcha! Tim: Augh!

I feel like mmm I don't want to emphasize power dynamics too much because it's easy to overplay it BUT when I think about headcanons it's interesting to me to think about how maybe when Tim can't see, Dick's more in charge / in control, and so he feels more comfortable and less vulnerable, and that's often when he's most relaxed and playing around the most?

Whereas the moments when Tim's looking at him are often a bit more fraught, as here in Lonely Place of Dying:

Tim: I'm sorry, Dick. I really am. I didn't want to hurt you by telling you all this. Dick... Dick: It's all right, Tim. No matter how old you are, there are some things you never forget. Or get over. (Silent panel: Tim's watching Dick as Dick turns away and stares into the window.)

Or here in Nightwing 6, when Tim wakes him up from a nightmare:

Dick (internally, imagining a kid falling): He shouts to me. He always shouts to me. I never hear what he says. Tim: Nightwing! Wake up!

Or here in Gotham Knights 26, when Bruce is accused of murder:

(Silent panel where Tim's watching Dick.) Tim: I'm sorry. This must be hard for you. Dick: Me? Why? Tim: Well, I mean, it'd be one thing if we really knew he was innocent, but as it is - Dick: Wait, what? Stop right there. What are you saying, Tim?

Here's Tim spotting him before he can get away in Nightwing 110:

Dick (watching Tim from a distance, internally): Still, Timmy played it through nice and clean. Disarmed the perps, protected and avoided the cops. Kept any civilians from getting shot. God, I love that kid. Too much to let him see me like this. Tim: Hey! (appearing on the roof above him, fake-cheerful) You weren't gonna leave without saying hi, were you? Dick (looking away, very quietly): Hey, Timmy. Tim: Look at you, man! Back on both feet! Think you're done stopping bullets with your body for a while? Dick: Hope springs eternal. (Silent panel with Tim watching Dick, who's turned away.) Tim: You okay, Dick? Dick: I'm fine. Tim: Well, where're you staying these days? Dick: With some people.

Of course, sometimes Tim's watchfulness is frustrating but also a comfort, as in Detective Comics 874:

Tim (watching Dick, who's looking away): Are you listening to me, Batman? I'm saying the gas the Dealer used on you was powerful stuff. Dick: I'm fine, Red Robin. Besides...you're here now. Tim: You're not fine. And with or without me, you shouldn't be out on patrol ye - Dick: Sshhh. Here they come.

(Later in the comic, Dick mentally concedes that Tim's right that he hasn't really recovered from the gas, and Tim saves him from drowning when he's hallucinating. So Dick feels kind of exposed by the scrutiny, but also... he invited Tim along, so there's trust there, too - Tim's perceptiveness can be a good thing, too, when things are serious.)

Incomplete summary of moments with Dick and Tim and vision

I think I already mentioned a lot of these but here is my LIST

almost the first thing that Dick says to Tim is "watch me on the trapeze, Tim" and then Tim does and he basically never stops watching;

Tim watches Dick's parents die and watches Dick sobbing on-stage and watches him on TV and recognizes him by seeing a particular trick because he's dreamed about Dick doing the trick in his recurring nightmares about that night;

in New Titans 65 which is their very first team-up comic after Tim's origin, Dick's training pre-Robin Tim and gives him a test about watching for details and later Tim's takeaway is "I saw how [the Titans] listened to you";

there's a moment in Showcase '93 12 which is just Tim watching Dick and analyzing what's going on with him and there's another moment in Prodigal which is the same thing;

in Nightwing 6 Tim sneaks into Dick's apartment and hides in the dark and Dick spots him and tackles him; one of their most important bonding comics is Nightwing 25, where Dick insists on blindfolding him to get him to rely less on vision; when they sneak into No Man's Land they're in the dark and Tim can't see again and Dick's teasing him;

there are multiple moments when Tim can't see Dick for a bit and panics about his safety, in Nightwing 25, in No Man's Land, in Transference, in Bruce Wayne: Murderer;

Tim's there watching when Dick's wedding to Kory falls apart and he's there watching when Bruce and Dick fight and he's there watching when Donna dies and he's watching when Dick and Bruce swing together on the night before Infinite Crisis, and when Dick goes down and almost dies in Infinite Crisis we cut to Tim watching and seeing it happen and screaming;

there are multiple moments which are just silent panels of them staring at each other trying to figure out what's going on with each other or having a stand-off - in Bruce Wayne: Murderer, in Resurrection, in Red Robin;

in the aftermath of Donna's death there's a panel where Dick's watching Tim from a distance and not approaching;

in the aftermath of Blockbuster Dick spends half the comic just staring at Tim from a distance and hiding himself because "I love that kid - too much to let him see me like this," but Tim sees him anyway and chases him down and then they lie to each other and *ranting* LISTEN TO ME the whole comic is about Dick trying to AVOID being SEEN both literally but also METAPHORICALLY AND --!!!

(the only thing i'm even as halfway obsessive about for them is the heights thing because also there are a bunch of moments involving falling or Tim being anxious about heights and worried that he'll fall or Dick will fall)

In conclusion

Consider the progression in all these moments where Tim's watching an upset Dick and worrying about him!! From reaching out instinctively-but-pointlessly when he's too far away in the LPoD flashback, to almost reaching out in LPoD but hesitating, to putting a hand on Dick's back to walk him back to the Cave in Gotham Knights 10, to physically dragging him clear of the water in Batman: Black Mirror!

In conclusion I don't have a conclusion but basically YES, "watching Dick" is a core Tim characteristic as far as I'm concerned, and Tim watches Dick a lot and that can mean all kinds of things from admiration to nosy intrusiveness to worry to care to gratitude to trying-to-figure-out-what's-going-on-with-him, and sometimes Dick's resentful and sometimes he's relieved and sometimes he's playful and sometimes it's a mix of all those feelings.

And at first it's always Tim watching Dick, but later you've got Dick watching Tim too, and there's that moment where Dick's secretly watching him fight but Tim spots him in Nightwing 110 and there's a silent panel where Dick's watching him in Resurrection and at the very end of Robin there's a scene where Dick's secretly watching him fight but Tim spots him and in the very last issue of Red Robin Dick's watching the end of the confrontation with Boomerang and in Prodigal Dick's the one who notices his face is bruised and aaaaaaah

Anyway I think they're neat <3

[webshootersandwingdings]

Tim Drake • Gotham Knights

[icereader12]

Was rereading WFA. Confused as to why there is no Tim in Damian's birthday episode. Realized that Tim is taking the pictures for the episode.

[inamindfarfaraway]

I had to do Team Batgirl. Babs is Oracle, Cass is Black Bat and Steph is Batgirl as per pre-New 52. Remember, the core drive of each emotion is benevolent, no matter how bad they feel. Sadness is responsible for empathy, sympathy and asking for help; Fear wants to keep us and what we care about safe; Anger wants things to be fair; and Disgust wants to protect us from physical, social or moral contamination. They're all the basis for more complex emotions and processes, e.g. Fear enables forethought and common sense for risk evaluation, Anger inspires courage and bold, direct action and Disgust is highly involved in meeting social expectations.

[Babs's Headquarters have a similar professional atmosphere to Bruce's. The walls are dark grey. In the background of the immaculate main office, a few closed doors partition off other spaces, probably more personal ones; the memory shelves are longer than average and have additional walled channels beneath them to store memory orbs that fall from overflow, and the memories glow unusually bright; there are no windows and the room is lit by overhead office lights, the sight screen and the memory orbs. Her emotions are also in wheelchairs and wear glasses, with individual styles and decorations. Her console is a large, angular, intricate control panel of polished silver metal, elegant and futuristic, at which sit Fear at the helm, Anger at her right hand and Joy at her left, then Sadness and Disgust next to them.]

Fear: We’re scanning our entire surveillance network, but the Joker is still unaccounted for. We should check in with Cassandra and Stephanie.

Joy: I’m so proud of them. Permission to verbalize that to them, ma’am?

Fear: Don’t know if we’ll have time.

Anger: Yeah, expressing vulnerability takes a lot of energy, and we all agreed to divert 75% of it to single-minded fixation on justice until Joker is back in Arkham. Preferably via ambulance.

Fear: I’ll schedule a tight smile for when the girls get back, but no guarantee Babs will remember it then. Our short-term memory bank is already full to bursting.

Disgust: (under her breath, annoyed) As always.

Sadness: So, um… Dick hasn't called us back yet, but I think he wants to. Maybe we should call him.

Fear: No, we’re both busy. We can catch up tommorow.

[Cass's Headquarters are largely a fusion of a dojo and a gym, a wide open space with mats, punching bags and other exercise and martial arts equipment. The walls and floor are wooden boards. A set of floor-to-ceiling windows at the back and sides shaped like bat symbols make the space light and airy. The background has a corridor leading off to the left and a staircase going up at the right that look straight out of Wayne Manor. There is no console. Rather, an elevated black stage with yellow curtains is before the screen. Sadness is centre-stage, flanked by Anger and Fear, then Joy and Disgust. The black surface lights up with squares of the emotions’ respective colours under their feet as they dance in a graceful, perfectly coordinated ballet routine to classical music. Until Fear makes a different move to the others. An alarm beeps, cutting off the music, and everyone freezes. The others stare at Fear. Anger is offended, Sadness and Joy intrigued and Disgust confused.]

Anger: (folds her arms, raises an eyebrow and puffs out her chest at Fear challengingly)

Sadness: (gently holds Anger in place with a hand on her shoulder and nods to Fear)

Fear: (cringes, but cautiously makes the move again)

Anger: (clenches her fists and gestures in outrage to Sadness)

Joy: (steps forward and holds Fear’s hand in support, making unintimidated eye contact with Anger)

Disgust: (looks ahead through Cass’s eyes, unlike any of the others are, due to boredom with the dispute)

Disgust: Ugh. More henchmen.

Sadness: You handle it.

Disgust: Fiiiine.

[The emotions reshuffle so that Disgust is centre-stage. She dances alone to simpler music with only one instrument. The others retreat upstage, Sadness between Anger and Fear and Joy as she tries to mediate.]

Joy: (stands protectively in front of Fear and beckons for Anger to bring it on, balancing her weight)

Sadness: (shakes her head disapprovingly, unseen by anyone)

Anger: (yells wordlessly and punches Joy)

[The four break into a fight, tumbling offstage onto the mats. Disgust rolls her eyes.]

[Steph's Headquarters are furnished much like a mundane living room, with white walls, a plush purple sofa, cluttered coffee table, lamps emitting warm light, windows to one side and a comfortable atmosphere. The doors to ancillary rooms are open. Tucked away by the memory orb shelves, two cardboard boxes of purple, blue, red and green memory orbs marked ‘Trauma - FRAGILE’ remain unpacked. Her console resembles a video game controller, being white plastic, rounded and having colourful buttons, switches and joysticks. It has a single chair, a spinning one made of black plastic and purple cushions. Joy is seated, gleefully wiggling a joystick. Anger is on her right, excitedly watching the mission, and Sadness is on her left, concerned. Disgust is hovering at the side of the console, not very interested. Fear is on the sofa quietly writing in a puzzle book.]

Joy: We’ve got this in the bag. None of these bozos even know we’re here.

[She reaches to press a yellow button. Disgust notices, abruptly invested, and pushes past Sadness to grab Joy’s hand.]

Disgust: But they will if you quip from so near them. And then we’re gonna fail and Babs is gonna make her disappointed face and, like, never trust Steph with a stealth mission again.

Joy: Good point.

Anger: There’s the ringleader! Aw, Cass is already beating him up.

Sadness: (sighs and leans on the console, turning it partially blue) She was a way better Batgirl, we’ll never come close and everyone knows it.

Joy: (batting her arm away) Sadness, we’ve talked about this. Steph earned her place and has nothing to prove. Everything's gonna be fine. Okay, let’s just sneak past and get out with the intel -

Fear: Hey, guys, do you ever think about how Steph’s daughter could die at any moment and we wouldn’t even know?

[The others tense and flinch. The console lights up purple and fades to blue.]

Joy: SHUT UP, FEAR!

Disgust: So not the time!

Sadness: (crying) I am now!

Anger: This is why we never listen to you!