#the show and tim can't keep acting like that happened bc it DIDN'T

[cinematicnomad]

#they crammed stupid vertigo and kim into a couple episodes and made chris up and leave within like two days #but THIS is the part they're dragging out? #he's just gone for like five months and barely acknowledges eddie? #we better get some serious emotional payoff from this #it won't make it worth it and i'll still be annoyed forever#but at least there will be a reason #'eddie needs to figure himself out and fix what he broke' SHE GOT BANGS (via @andavs)

i'm actually like So insanely mad about the chris plot like it is fucking deranged that he's been gone for so long. like i don't talk about it much but that is Such bullshit i'm sorry no teenager is so mad at their dad that they literally abandon their entire life overnight and fucking transfer schools to another state. no adult just Lets that happen. that is So deeply stupid. i just have to pretend that shit isn't happening it pisses me off so bad

[fandomregression]

uhhh tim as a regresser? i know hes usually a cg in your fics but i kinda relate to him so much

while i see him mainly as a cg, thats mostly bc i want him to be my cg, but i absolutely see how he could be a regressor so rAMBLING TIIIIIIIME

Regressor Tim Stoker Headcanons!

so tim starts regressing actually kinda young, in his early teens, because he's always lived in his brother's shadow. always been the second, despite being the older child, and its. hard. he pretends everything's okay and he isnt jealous, but he wants. needs. attention too

he learns what regression is exactly in university, and he kinda just shrugs and says 'yep that tracks' and pushes it to the side. let's bury that problem and deal with it later! that's a problem for Future Tim!

future tim is very mad and small, now. he spends a lot of time crying into his pillow and hugging his childhood stuffie, a little doggy named spot, until he falls asleep

he tries to basically never let dating partners find out abt his regression that doesn't seem like a good thing

a few of them do, and a couple try their hands at being cgs. they give up because tim is "too much" for them to handle

then danny dies, and tim spirals

hes just really, really not okay. he spends so much of his time trying to research what happened, trying to learn about the circus, trying to find anything that explains why his little brother is dead, and he can't figure it out. and he just tears himself apart over it. he's on the verge of regressing pretty much all the time, he's crying his eyes out all the time, and everything is bad. by the time he starts working at the magnus institute, he's a shell of a man whose head always feels like its swimming

then he meets jon, and he can tell there's something familiar in the ways he acts. tim's almost certain jon is a regressor, and well...he's nothing if not a good big brother. and he's a big brother who really, really welcomes this distraction from the fact that his little brother is dead

he does his best to keep jon out of trouble and take care of him, but he's well aware of his own headspace encroaching on all of this. its not easy. little things that tim does for jon are things that make tim regress, so its. not going too well!

until they meet sasha :)

sasha notices these two are a lil different pretty quickly. its become even more evident when they're researching a case, end up at a park, and jon and tim are playing on the playground like little kids

tim is very excited about this, and he absolutely climbs on top of the monkey bars and shouts for sasha

"sasha! sasha! look at me!!! :D!!!" "i see you! you're up so high!!"

she pushes them both on the swings, she pushes them both on the merry-go-round, and it feels just so natural to them

(tim picks her some dandelions and clovers, too, and sasha adores it)

after that day, when tim's big again, he realizes that sasha was able to actually play with both of them and pay attention to tim even though he was bigger than jon...sasha actually wanted to take care of *tim* and jon at the same time...and he didn't feel neglected...

(he cried himself to sleep again that night, but he wasn't sure why it felt so painful) (its the neglect trauma)

at work, tim basically just starts feeling a pull toward sasha a lot of the time, and he's terrified of being too much for her, but he...he needs this...

if he finds a cool bug, he takes a picture to show her. cool rock, he takes it inside and gives it to her. he likes to draw little doodles on his sticky notes and give them to her, and it absolutely makes his heart soar every single time she sticks them to her monitor. he's just. thriving off the affection

jon is the first one to explain regression, and he expects both tim and sasha to just push him away. he is absolutely not expecting tim to say he's a regressor too (how jon didn't notice? well...poor baby's not very observant...) and they're both not expecting sasha to just say "oh i know, who wants a juice box?"

both just. malfunctioning

tim does regress older than jon, usually around 6-8, and he takes his job as big bubby VERY seriously. he holds jon's hand when they do anything, he is always imparting his wisdom (which has been "red crayons taste bad" and variations of that multiple times), and he tries to let jon get more attention from sasha

sasha does not take too well to that last one. she notices pretty quickly that tim sacrifices himself for jon, and that just won't fly. so, extra hugs. extra kisses. lots of one-on-one playtime. tim cries a lot over this

then they move down to the archives and yay!! martin!!! now tim and jon have a mama and a papa and its even easier for them to both get the attention they need (especially tim, who doesn't feel as guilty when there's two cgs he can go to whichever one isn't handling jon)

tim has a lot of games he likes to play, and he has quite a few stuffies, but a lot of the time he likes playing nintendo with martin (and jon watches and tells him how cool he is)

sasha and martin both learn pretty quickly that anything circus/clown themed is very much a no-no with tim. if he's already regressed, its the quickest way to a panic attack he can get. if he isn't regressed, he will be very shortly, and then the panic attack happens

at that point its just...hugs and comfort until he can stop crying

when it comes down to it, he's just glad to finally have this sort of support system. to have multiple people who care about him and actually try

[judehatesmaths]

Omggg please tell me what happens in the book in the late 50s? The I love you’s and the second break up? You can do a spoiler thingy and a drop down so people don’t accidentally read it when they don’t want to 😊 (my anxiety needs preparation even though I think the storyline will differ from the book a bit considering Hawk isn’t quite the same in the show as he’s written in the book from what I’ve gathered?)

Okay okay! I literally can't resist talking about this so yea spoilers down below! (It's longer than expected God I'm sorry xd)

In the book, Tim comes from the army back to DC and Hawk finds out bc Mary, who has been writing back and forth to Tim that whole time, confirms it. Hawk is very "happy?" pleased about it and puts up a job offer some time later.

In the book remember Tim doesn't work for McCarthy, but one senator Potter. Later, Hawk is also less surprised when Tim shows up for the job interview. They honestly don't say anything too important to eachother, just that Tim hadn't actually been in Hawk's office before and also Tim got him another book, for his last birthday. The book has another message just like the first, but now instead of the "I got the job, you're wonderful" it says "I really want the job, it would be wonderful"

Hawk grabs Tim and guides them both to another department at State that's working on a refugee relief act, which Hawk knows Tim is really interested bc his boy just wants to help, and presents Tim to the guy there who tells them to leave his resumé. Hawk tells him they'll do it later and Tim is confused bc like why can't he do the interview now? But Hawk insists and takes Tim away.

He takes Tim to a building that's inhabited that Mary's ex boyfriend?I don't remember who he was exactly, but the thing is the store is not occupied. So Hawk takes Tim upstairs to the attic where he had prepared a small place for them to be. Tim is very happy about this bc it means it's for him and Hawk has never brought anyone here before.

It's in this scene where, when Hawk brings him some milk which Tim accidentally spills, Tim cries and confess saying "I love you, Hawk".

Hawk hugs Tim very fiercely and, knowing he shouldn't say it but not because he doesn't feel it, says it back. "I love you too."

And then the months go by and Hawk has his daughter but he keeps the affair going on with Tim and tim is actually happy and doesn't really care that now its an actual affair. Then the news come that he didn't get the job at State but it's okay because he has Hawk right?

.no.

Apparently, Hawk had gone to the guys at the department and "outed" Tim, saying it would be a risk to hire him. So they don't hire him but Hawk tells Mary to tell that to Tim, tell him the truth. And to make it hard on him. He wants to break up, definitely this time, with him.

And like here is where I honestly don't get Hawk and I'm very glad the show is changing this, bc I hate this Hawk. What he did was very mean, from what I understood and remember from the book, he breaks up bc he starts thinking ahead in both him and Tim's future together, knowing that what he feels about him will be replaced by a feeling of almost obligation?to be with the boy.

So yeah, Mary tells Tim, who is obviously heartbroken, and then he doesn't see Hawk until McCarthys funeral. Here Tim goes to a cathedral and Hawk finds him there, both completely alone. Tim hands him the half sliced dome (the one in the show we know it's Kenny's) and Hawk takes it. He then grabs Tim and hugs him, fiercely and says, "I'm sorry" to which Tim replies "For what?" And Hawk doesn't get to reply but he wants to say "For everything."

and then the book ends. We get to the epilogue and find out Tim died, not of aids but bone cancer. Hawk talks to Mary and she sends him a sketch Tim had done: it was of the attic he and Hawk had spent time in, where they said I love you. Below, Tim had written :Let him know I was happy enough. Make it easy on him.

Aaaaand Hawk places it with the paperweight on top, apparently he'd gone everywhere with it.

[screamting]

I knew i had a good follower base.

Okay so, I did actually write some trans!bruce fic here when I was Real Upset last year and it has a lot of these ideas in it but I'm gonna go through them individually here all the same so it's not necessary reading

The Problems

There are a couple to list out before we talk about how trans!bruce fixes them.

1. Bruce's chronic paranoia and stubbornness surrounding it, and how no one accepts He's Just Kinda Like That You Just Need To Ask Specific Questions.

Like..... I make a lot of PTSD jokes and mental illness ones, but there are constant plot points about how characters feel they know bruce so well that they get BETRAYED when they think he's hiding something from them is.... Weird considering how often that's happened. And yet they still always feel like they're the ones who would know? Or how often Bruce DOES in fact keep quiet about plans, even with people he's obviously trusted and lived with a long time. No matter what, there's always a feeling of mistrust, pretty much just to create some amount of tension or be like "well Batman DID solve this in act one but didnt tell you."

2. The wildly different treatment each robin gets, especially Stephanie, whose short run made it look Kinda Sexist even if that wasnt the intent.

3. I don't actually consider his secret identity keeping secret an issue but Some People Do So Here It Is

that comes to the big one....

The problem with damian wayne.... Is damian wayne. Someone talking about this thread elsewhere expanded that "there is no problem Damian solves which he hasn't also caused." Not in a tony stark way, thankfully, but in a character sense.

We know that doylist wise (our understanding of how irl wrote the work) that Dick Grayson/Robin was introduced to cater more to kids. As his popularity grew on the Titans and people wanted him to be able to grow up, Jason Todd was created so that Dick could go off as an adult but Batman still got a very peppy robin companion. One writer didn't lile Jason Todd much and got him killed off after a couple "hm maybe hes a bad kid" issues. Batman spirals into a depression the writers can't pull him out of, so they introduce Tim Drake as a replacement who argues his way into being robin to fix the status quo and again have a character for kids to relate to. Stephanie comes in as a one-story character who is brought back to popular demand, and knowing that she's supposed to die at the end of the arc the writer decides she should be able to be robin for a while. As a treat. I have no idea why cass was brought in but that's ok bc she doesnt have to change at all for this shes gold. And Damian is introduced for???? Idk drama.

Which is sort of the issue. Like. All the other characters come in one after another to support or tack onto where someone else was (besides cass, who has escaped relatively unscathed and can travel between groups without changing dynamic otl) .

The common fan interpretation of these events (which are somewhat incorperated into canon sometimes) are: Bruce doing his thing and finds a kindred spirit (dick) who makes him happier. Dick goes off to do his own thing after a fight and bruce is extremely lonely and meets Jason. Jason dies and Tim breaks into Bruce's house until Bruce stops throwing him out; sometimes he brings Nightwing over too. Tim meets steph, who jumps in as robin while Tim is in boarding school, then dies. Cass is just doing her own thing. And then Damian shows up one day out of the blue and demands Changes be made.

Now obviously Cass and Damian have something similar here: they both come out of left field and need to solve an issue.

The difference is that Cass's issue is that she was raised by an assassin father, admires batman, and needs help. She gets a plotline from there and eventually gets adopted and goes off to do things.

Damian shows up, and his problem is that he's the son of Batman so he's destined to become Batman.

....you see the issue. Damian's mere existance 'causes' the problem. The issue is he's going to be Batman. But we have a Batman. We have two batsmen. So obviously he should be a robin instead and that boots Tim out of the role, and the issue is that Damian exists and cannot grow out of Robin until hes batman but bruce will never die and dami will never be "good enough" to be Batman and so the only source of tension is the methods for dealing with crime and so it's like a constant argument between Bruce and Jason except now Bruce can send Jason to his room and jason uses swords inst oh wait huh

(note: do NOT hold swords this way.)

...so yeah. Damian.... Doesnt offer any solutions. He doesnt prop up the next arc. He's just... There to exist as the next batman who will never come, and be trapped as a very difficult preteen until the end of rebooted time.

How Trans Bruce Fixes Things.

Going a little out of order since they do blend together some:

1. It makes a lot more sense for people who are considered close to feel like you’re willing to constantly hide things from them if you’re in the closet, technically hiding things from them.

Now, to be clear, I do feel a little bit weird using ‘hiding’ or ‘lying’ in the same sentence as ‘staying in the closet’, because being closeted isn’t a negative thing. But neither is lying or hiding something when you’re feeling unsafe. So please think of it in that light, and not in a Ready Player One “it’s okay i forgive you for not telling me details of your life that other people might hurt you for” way.

Now, obviously, this does hinge on.... you know.... being closeted and trans. So the kid Martha and Thomas left behind was presumed female (from here on referred to as “Ms Wayne” ) and obviously young ten year old bruce wasn’t able to tell his parents any feelings he may or may not have been having about gender at that age. So his parents’ deaths haunt him also because it’s hard to know what they would’ve thought of it, personally. Publicly, he’s perscieve do as the last heiress of the Wayne corporation, not really expected to get too involved in it, etc.

It also makes it very hard to connect him to Batman because no one would think “Ms. Wayne” would be Batman, because, like. Assumptions. Any league people who may potentially know think it’s just a very clever ruse.

But it also it makes things weird for his friends who like. KNOW where he lives, and his birth name, and that he’s literally batman, and yet for SOME REASON their ‘he is lying’ senses start pinging off the hook at random innocuous things like “ah yes this is my name” and “well yes as a representative lesbian” and “yes i support trans people” (a WEIRD AND UNFORTUNATE thing to feel the ‘is this a lie?’ Ping about) . Like. Things that they are PRETTY SURE ARE TRUE and yet..... something about his heart rate or w/e feels off about it. Which isn’t... ILLEGAL or anything, but.... for people who every other time that sense has pinged it’s been right, it is a weird subtle strain on an otherwise trusting relationship.

2. I definitely made this one more clear in the fic bc i had more room but I’ll try to summarize like.... each different Robin has a different reaction to the “Batman’s a woman” thing. Dick is pretty chill about it. He knows about playing a character and takes it very very seriously when Batman’s in costume to use he/him pronouns. Jason..... has MOTHER ISSUES........ you think his dad issues are bad, wait until he thinks he has THREE MOMS. Tim things it’s very strategic and v clever how batman ‘disguised his identity’ by pretending to be the ‘opposite gender’ and accidentally makes just a bunch of microaggressions even though Bruce loves him and is doing his best but Tim really does just. Bull rush right the hell into their lives and doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.

Cassandra is the same. She sees movement. She get it. Bruce fucking loves that he doesn’t a) have to explain anything to her and b) she doesn’t say anything out loud about it because she doesn’t use pronouns while speaking. They just talk about regular justice stuff lol.

Stephanie.... changes a lot because of this, though. Instead of girl under grizzled old manly man mentor, Steph things she’s under basically mortal Wonder Woman, not a guy who’s been expected to be a girl his whole life. She is instantly a lot more comfortable with Bruce than Bruce is with her (or anyone) and he reacts by being chillier and trying to push her away, even while training her for being Robin. There’s maybe some jealousy that he didn’t have with dick about how comfortable she is in her skin and BEiNG Stephanie, while Bruce has essentially just been repressing harder and harder as the years go by since Jason’s death and now Tim being distanced. It still turns out badly.

And then there is Damian.

As said above, Damian is the problem Damian solves. There’s no issue in the narrative that Damian’s existence fixes, except for the ones his existence caused.

But if Bruce is trans and biologically has ovaries and shit, that’s a very different hen house, especially in regards to Ra’s al Ghul.

Ra’s is. Like. Sexist, guys. Ra’s is super sexist.

[transcript: born into the highest echelon of the ancient and patriarchal league of assassins, Talia could have had all the power in the world if not for the unfortunate happenstance of being born a girl. For most of her life, Talia was led to believe that the only way to secure the power lost to her by birth was to find a suitable male partner, and to produce a con. But having accomplished both romance with her perfect man and the birth of a perfect heir, Talia was still found wanting. End.]

This does not change with Bruce, partly because Bruce ain’t come out to HIM of all people??? But also because I’m pretty sure that even if Ra’s was Muslim [/doubt] [/he worships himself as a god if anything] he still wouldn’t be super down with the trans stuff, and so bruce is......... just another random ninja who was super good and then fuckin Ditched.

I like to pretend he and Tals knew each other a little bit while he was training (unlikely, but I LIKE it, though) and from there, you get........ ✨ the clone shit.

So Damian is a splice between Bruce and Tals still. But of course, Ra’s found out Talia was Doing Genetic Stuff and was like “make that a boy” and probably multilated one of the X chromosomes to make it a Y (this is not how it works) and if anything, Talia sends Damian to her old friend Ms Wayne to PROTECT her beloved son and keep him further from anymore of Ra’s doing weird shit, because now he’s definitely gotten the idea he could probably clone an heir instead. And if you REALLY want Heretic, that’s........ how you can get heretic and rationalize Talia hating him and stuff.

But now there’s an issue that Damian is introduced with. We still dont know exactly what makes someone trans, and I’m fine to put those questions on hold until we chill out some of the eugenicists and stuff, but I’m fairly sure that this does put Damian squarely in the ‘intersex’ category, and therefore someone who has gender/sex shit to work out, who is directly Bruce’s responsibility, who cannot be sent home to ask, or go ask superman, or anything.

Damian is still an assassin. Damian still grew up as a (bad) ninja. Admires his grandfather’s great foe Batman. Totally believes the patriarchy.

....but now instead of just things to argue about, Bruce and Damian have something to talk about that Bruce has never spoken with anyone about before. Because. You know he is not talking about anything until someone is either a) dying or b) otherwise being harmed. So this sets up something very specific for them to work on that Bruce needs to work on, and that Damian can also be helped by. It’s not Cass Cain deprogramming herself and looking for help, it’s a kid who doesn’t realize how much he’s hurting or struggling with identity and the way he was raised, now with something more inherent to him to feel the pain with.

Because, like... look. You can learn to empathize. You can learn that life has value. You don’t need to suffer to figure those things out, you just kind of need to have some amount of skin in the game, enough that things start to matter to you. When Dami bonds to Dick, his skin in the game is Dick’s opinion of him. Which works, but it does end up feeling a little bit forced and shallow since they never let him evolve much past that.

Like. Dick and Cass agree w Bruce that all life has value and you should struggle for correction over punishment. Jason thinks that accidentally getting a few extra people caught up in things justifies the ends. Tim is just straight up okay with killing people, but doesn’t do it out of respect for Batman’s wishes. Damian is just sort of..... like that, but with Dick, instead.

(I have no idea what Steph and Duke’s stances on the matter are. I don’t know enough about Duke to talk about him in this.)

Again, that’s sort of just... Damian repeating a niche previously filled by a different character and trying to act them all out at once while still being ‘Batman’s son’ and stuff. Gleason’s story tried to pull him out of that, but he’s apparently been put right back in the loop since then.

If you add in Bruce and Damian having a shared secret, then it bonds them. It gives Bruce something to mentorship Damian on other than patience (lmao), and it gives Damian a very strong reason to not go back to Ra’s—and a more complicated relationship between him and his mother, as he has to continue to pretend to be with Ms Wayne while also knowing that Batman/Bruce is a valuable secret.... that only he has been told. He’s been entrusted with this, his other mother’s legacy, now his father’s, and Batman.

It gives him something to learn. And to grow into. Not something he’s been bred for at birth, that writing will never let him escape, in an eternal Robin loop as writers try to add other characters in on the side, because they cannot write him out of this corner he’s been born into.

........................so is now a good time to talk about how Bruce Wayne being a trans man would fix a lot of the narrative issues with the batfam