hows-a-robin-like-a-writing-desk - Tumblr blog

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If you get it, you get it.

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“Cass is the perfect fighter and she is always 100% serious in any of her fights. Shes not the hero to be thinking of jokes in a fight”

Cass:

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remember when deathstroke kidnapped damian and put him in a tank slowly filling with water and damian spent the entire time being like “your kids hate you and you’re bad at your job and you’re a fucking boomer” before finishing it off with “come in here and slash my neck then i can be your kid too”. fucking GOT his ass.

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restless

(id in alt text)

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Nightwing #112 (2024)

written by Tom Taylor art by Sami Basri, Vicente Cifuentes, & Adriano Lucas

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little brother duo supremacy

edit: sorry to disappoint yall but this isnt dick or virgil 😭😭 its duke in a nightwing sweater,,,,

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YJ playing never have I ever 

Cissie goes never have I ever been experimented on by the government so Greta, Kon, and Bart put a finger down “Bart?? Hello??” “The futures fucked” “Called it” “Are you good?” “I mean I like pizza and not being stuck in a simulation sooo” “the future doesn’t have pizza??” “I know! Not having pizza is the absolute worst” 

Kon goes never have I ever had a mentor disregard my safety and everyone except Anita, Cassie, and Greta put a finger down “The joys of not having a mentor” “Hal lost it when he found out about last christmas” “Every time Diana realizes we’ve gone off planet she goes nuclear” “middle child, no one’s looking for me in the first place”

Cassie says never have I ever been betrayed by family members (biological or otherwise) so there’s a small argument over whether or not you should have to put a finger down for each betrayal “I’m just saying there’s a lot of speedsters” “I have like nine siblings on a technicality” “Do alternate versions of alleged biological relations count??” “🤓👆🏾AlLeGEd BiOlOgicAl ReLaTIoNs ” “stfu” “Can I add someone else’s alt to my list if they killed me?? Wait, Thad tried to kill me again last week” “Are we counting each person or each betrayal??” “I don’t have enough fingers for that” “fuck, me either” “I don’t have enough fingers for each person much less each time I was betrayed” 

Anita goes never have I ever had a family member attempt or succeed in killing me and everyone puts a finger down “so fuck me ig” “does prime count for us??” “yeah?? we’re family, stupid” “I feel targeted” “me too” “what if it was an accident??” “It still counts”

Tim goes never have I ever had to screw with time to meet family member(s) so Anita and Bart put down a finger “technically I didn’t-“ “you’re a speedster put your mf finger down” “fair” “they were babies, I didn’t meet shit” “they were your parents put your fucking-”

Greta goes never have I ever befriended people that tried to kill me multiple times and Tim and Bart put down a finger “it’s how we bond! This is slander” “Bart we’ve been to like six other timelines and dimensions where Thad kills you” “wait you said friend do I-“ “Pru” “listen that’s different” “Anarky??” “Klarion” “Azrael” “Lynx” “I also tried to kill you” “My fucking finger is down are you happy?” 

Bart goes never have I ever had a family that doesn’t want me around and everyone puts a finger down “look at us! Bonding” “I don’t think I was invited to thanksgiving last year” “ngl they have no idea how old I am” “I was accidentally added to the family group chat” “dude they added you??” 

Tim goes never have I ever had mommy issues resulting in everyone putting a finger down “??” “You do know you’re targeting yourself right??��� “Bart put your finger down” “wtf why my mom loves me” “Emotional turmoil bc you can never see her again ergo mommy issues” “eRgO” “stfu” “Kon?? You don’t have a mom??” “My choices are Superman or Lex” “Yikes…” “Put another finger down”

[No one wins especially not the jl that walked in halfway through the game bc yj was having game night in a briefing room and gave absolutely zero notice]

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sorry had a spare like 10 minutes at work lol. additions from my tags visualized <3

Does this make sense?

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Does this make sense?

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Actually I don't knoe much about Spiderman comics, but I DO happen to know exactly what this is referencing!!

Don't know what the context is but I saw this scene out of context a while ago and it really stuck in my brain for obvious reasons. Also I had to cut like 6 pages cause of 10 Pic post limit, but the full scene is totally worth looking at even if you, like me, have never read a single Spiderman comic in your life lol

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In terms of trying to transplant how Dick’s generation grew up to independent adult heroes onto Tim’s generation, one of the significant issues is that the two groups have very different backstories.

The Fab Five and their generation were largely cared for children with present guardians during their teen years. Their ‘growing up’ rebellion moments were about wanting to establish their own identities separate to their parent/guardian. Then once NTT occurred and new young adult characters were added to it, you had a bunch who were escaping overbearing guardians with expectations the young adult didn’t want to fulfil, and leaving trauma behind.

The Core Four and other 90s heroes, in contrast, were mostly latchkey kids. They had loving but absent parents and parental figures. They were largely expected to grow up and show they were independent in their early teens. The arcs of their stories were not about growing up and finding themselves and ‘be your own person’, but about learning to trust others and interdependency and working together.

Like the shape of a Fab Five story is ‘in my preteens or earlier a Disaster Happened and I was taken in by a hero who cared for me and taught me the business as their sidekick. Then around 18-20 I moved out to live in a sharehouse with my friends as I wanted to find who I was outside of the shadow of being a sidekick’.

While…Tim’s generation largely aren’t sidekicks in the same sense. The shape of THEIR stories are of ‘teenager with largely absent adults is expected to grow up and show emotional maturity too early’. It’s actually notable that Tim, Kon and Bart all have long term story arcs that involve gaining a stable household right near the end.

Kon’s entire solo is the story of how he is neglected and exploited by every adult around him. He doesn’t have parents. He’s Peter Pan, the little boy who cannot grow up, who lives without parental expectation. He’s a celebrity kid exploited by Rex Leech and by CADMUS, who’s expected by those around him to act in an adult manner and held to that standard while simultaneously specifically being underage and not having the right to make his own decisions. His final arc in Superboy is about being so abandoned he doesn’t even have CADMUS to depend on anymore so he has to find an apartment and a job (the building superintendent) and is expected to act and function like an adult in that position. Superboy #59 (FIFTY NINE) is when Kon finally gets his own name. Superboy #100 is ABOUT Kon moving in with Jonathan and Martha Kent and finally having a stable home environment where he can be a child. Heck Kon’s already had a story where he’s ‘married’ and responsible for a kid. He’s had solo space adventures.

Bart’s solo is about Bart and Max learning to be a family together, but also: Bart’s childhood didn’t contain parents. Meloni turns up occasionally through his solo and loves him but also has to disappear away back to the 30th century at the end of each appearance. The final arc of Bart’s solo is about him moving in with Jay and Joan Garrick for more stability, because Max has disappeared (and stays disappeared). And then, post his solo, Bart even already has HAD an arc where he had to grow up and assume the Flash mantle (which went horribly wrong and led to his death).

Tim? Tim’s entire solo is about upheaval and change. The first time he’s expected to behave as an independent hero, not a sidekick, is literally Robin #1 when Azbats kicks him out of the Cave. Jack threatens to send him away to boarding school on multiple occasions and DOES for the Brentwood arc. He loses Jack, he loses Dana, he moves out to be a hero caring for his own city at 16, in Bludhaven post War Games. Bruce’s adoption of Tim was all about giving him back that sense of stability and support so that Tim had people backing him up again in his personal life and not only as a hero. And then he does the ‘leave and get a new identity’ thing during Red Robin.

And Cassie? Cassie starts with a loving mother and her story arc over becoming a hero is about periods of operating on her own. She moves away from her mum to go to Elias School. Due to operating as a hero under her own name she eventually has to come up with the alias of Drusilla Priam to give herself a non-public identity to retreat to (and isn’t living with Helena Sandsmark but renting on her own during this period to protect Helena).

This is a set of characters for whom it makes no narrative sense to tell a story of them growing up by ‘moving out and finding their own identity as separate heroes’ because their entire PAST is about being alone and looking for connections and people to rely upon. They haven’t been looking for their mentors to accept them as independent adults, they’ve been looking to their mentors to be present and work with them.

They have already all BEEN through the steps of moving out (while underage) and learning to look after themselves as nobody else was there to support them. Growing up for them is about learning to trust and be respected for the skills they already have and trusted to know what they’re doing, rather than leaving to show they can operate independently.

And that’s a harder narrative to show, because it’s a less common growth story in our culture. But in the Core Four’s case, I’d argue a lot of the traditional signifiers of adulthood (moving out; moving away for education; taking responsibility for a city on their own; travelling for quests) are things they were already expected to do while still significantly underage, and so sending them through that plot again isn’t showing anything new to allow them growth. What they need is the adults around them to treat them as adults for the things they already can and do do.

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You know, if any of the bats are going to kill the Joker: it should probably be Dick or Duke.

Like, I get it. 'Jason kills the Joker' sounds like the most obvious solution. But the thing is: Jason literally does not care about the Joker.

"But he's the man that killed him-" Sure. But that was a While ago. (At least if you ignore all the rebooting of the universe). Sure, Joker is a big symptom of what Jason sees as the problem. Which is: Crime needs to be controlled. Because more than anyone, he knows it won't be stopped. (It especially won't be stopped if no one is allowed to kill the bad guys).

But here's the thing. Jason's arc does not, and Should Not, revolve around Joker at all. Jason's story really never has been about revenge, and he should be Allowed to Move On from this one of the many people that hurt him. This isn't a: 'Oh Jason should learn to forgive and let go and not take revenge' this is a: 'the Joker is pathetic. Killing him just straight up doesn't do anything to Jason's arc or character.'

But Dick? Dick whose TRIED to kill the Joker? Dick who first donned the mask and tights to take revenge? Who wanted to make up for not being there for Jason? Yeah. This is the character that Would benefit from killing the Joker.

The first Robin has been around almost as long as the Joker has (both made in the same year) and it would be nothing more than divine justice for him to finally be the one to end him.

Well that's all well and good, you say. But what about Duke? What does he have to do with this?

You mean other than Duke being Awesome and he deserves to?

Duke's parents were hit by Joker gas. Pretty famously part of his character's back story. Duke has already killed a 'mirage' of Joker in the comics, which I think would be neat foreshadowing.

And think about it. The guy with light powers, the guy that works the day shift, by all means the Proof that Gotham really does care. Really does take things seriously. Why Shouldn't he get to kill off the personification of apathy?

Now the other point, and this is really just a personal vendetta, I would love Love the character that is Constantly ignored (at least by fandom) to kill off DCs 'specialist awful white man.'

The other person who should get to kill the Joker is Barbara Gordon (for self explanatory reasons) except I don't trust any writer to do it.

(She should get to beat that Thing into a white and red Pulp and shred his remains. No 'pull a trigger' no 'hire a swat team.' She gets to do it with her Bare Fists)

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there is something where. hm. like yes, tim can be condescending towards steph, he was written by dixon, it's inevitable. but also since, for a very long time, he was the only one supporting steph's decision to be a vigilante & the only one giving her any sort of attempt at formal training, tim is also the one who tends to get held accountable for her by the adults in their lives when she does mess up, or acts reckless, or makes a mistake. because the fault is considered to lie with his failure to teach her properly, so even if it shouldn't be tim's fault, because it's the fault of all the adults who are refusing to take any sort of responsibility, her behavior does end up reflecting on tim.

so you end up with this thing where to steph: her and tim are equals in a relationship. they are similar aged vigilates & the disparity in their training and experience isn't that important. because she's trying and working really hard & her methods do end up getting the result she desires/end up working in some way, shape, or form, so she's doing good enough to be on equal footing with tim wrt this whole vigilante thing. after all, they're both kids! there's no real difference between them except tim gets a little more training than her. and she's not wrong in that if an adult were to actually officially sanction her & train her she would be on more equal footing with tim as far as they're just two kids who are choosing to be vigilantes.

where to tim he's operating with the knowledge that that their relationship is one thing, but their jobs as vigilantes is a completely separate thing. and them being equal vigilantes is really not considered the case to any other active gotham vigilante. experiencewise, before steph even showed up on the scene, tim had had at least his six months of dedicated training with batman & occasional training with nightwing. he had also had his weeks of dedicated daily training in paris with the rahul lama & then his speed training with lady shiva. he does have probably close to at least 8-9 months of training and experience and working as robin on steph at her first appearance. he's also at a point where he is considered by the adults around him to be trained & skilled enough to be able to train jean-paul valley at that point. this disparity only worsens during the time before they start dating where tim finishes his training in paris with the rahul lama along with getting even more ongoing specialized training from batman & nightwing and steph...continues to be self taught. so the adults around them have expectations for tim that they don't necessarily have for steph, and since tim is the one training her & the expectations for tim at this point are that he's an autonomous, skilled vigilante in his own right (and has been since he was left in charge of azbats), if steph does mess up & tim is the one choosing to sanction & train her, then her mistakes & recklessness becomes tim's fault for not training her properly. although in a perfect world, she wouldn't be his responsibility in this way, that's just how everyone (batman, nightwing, the birds of prey) views it. & like. as someone who takes students at her job. it's not entirely wrong that while a mistake made by a student is on the student & it's also very much considered ultimately the fault of the instructor for failing to recognize that the student wasn't ready or skilled enough for something that they made a mistake, because as the more experienced professional, it's on you to recognize the limitations of the student & supervise/guide them accordingly. which tim is in the position of everyone feeling that steph is his responsibility to manage, because he's often the only one who thinks she should be given a chance & is trying to give her a chance.

it's an inherent power imbalance, formed the the fact that tim is the only one willing to instruct her for a long time, sanctioned & reinforced by the adults around them.

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👽🦇

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infinite crisis (2005) #7 // batman (1940) #681 // outsiders (2003) #21 // batman (1940) #438 // infinite crisis (2005) #6 // nightwing (1996) #99 // batman: urban legends (2021) #10 // teen titans (2016) #26 // nightwing (1996) #117 // nightwing (2011) #30 // nightwing (1996) #99 // nightwing (1996) #152 // nightwing (2016) annual #2 // nightwing (2011) #30

dick & bruce + LET YOUR FATHER DIE ENERGY DRINK, cecilia corrigan

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