ratofthenest

[ratofthenest]

we when when jason todd and and trans and trans allegory and please kill me

me when trans allegory is found literally everywhere i look

[ratofthenest]

i despise the idea that Tim Drake's character has some sort of huge "problem" arrrgehebeh

for starts, when it comes to Tim the title "Robin" was never a regression or a starting point. unlike Dick and Jason, Tim's character wasn't written to just be "Batman's sidekick" like they were. the whole point is Tim was... perfect. everything Batman could ever need and more on the field.

Dick quit being Robin once he start university, picking up the mantle of Nightwing. Dick started out as Robin REALLY young, and the whole thing was a nickname from his parents. he became Robin to avenge them, and then stayed afterwards to continue to help people. he was a really good Robin, too! there's a reason so many people like him. he's like, what every sidekick dreams of becoming, yk?

similar situation with Jason (but not really?). he starts off a completely different person from how he is portrayed today, and especially after his death? there was no way he could go back to being Robin after all that. Either way, Jason started out with that same REALLY strong sense of justice Dick had (although, let's be honest, Jason has always been a little violent with his delivery of it)

[Side note: these are brief, 2 paragraph overviews and obviously their characters are so much more convoluted than this, but this post aint about them!!]

Tim? Tim doesn't come from a broken background, which sets him apart from the first two Robin's immediately. he starts off with both his parents alive and well, and he's a white rich kid. He didn't have an incentive to become Robin, yet he did it anyway, completely for the sake of "saving" Batman. after Jason flopped with the readers, the writers went ahead and did a 180° with Tim. he was created with the idea of someone who was nearly perfect for the position. someone smart, adaptable, charismatic, and likeable. and hey, it worked really well when he came out, too!

this really makes Tim standout from the other Robins, though. sure, being Robin was definitely a learning process, and it's not like he immediately knew how to do everything right off the bat, but he learned quick! like, really quick! there wasn't necessarily an urgent need for him to take up a new title as a way to show he's "grown up" because he's already mature as hell as is. what's there to progress to when he was literally molded for this?

now, the issue of Red Robin. Tim took up that title in a time of pure crisis. the mantle was born out of grief, anger, and the desperation to bring Bruce back home, no matter what. Anyone who's read the Red Robin comics can tell you how he was crashing out throughout it. through my eyes, if he's ever to drop the Robin mantle, it certainly shouldn't be to go back to Red Robin. Does that mean I think he should stay Robin forever? No! Course not!! but I also think the writers need to pause and actually think about the kind of character his is before deciding to make a mantle that's purely Tim, if that makes any sense.

all that aside, it's important to acknowledge that Tim started off as a narrative tool. a support character ready to go at any given moment through other people's stories, not just Batman. countless times we see DC utilizing Tim just to progress the plot, which isnt inherently a bad thing, but it does explain why he's such a wild card in the comics lol

his character changed a LOT from the 90s to the 00s, and he's gone from a character at Batman's side 24/7 to a character who gets sidelined more often than not. and with everything else going on in DC rn, im not surprised he hasn't been in the spotlight for a hot second. but hey, i heard there's some possible content coming out for him this and the upcoming years so yay?

final thoughts: it'd be pretty fucking hard for a writer to properly write a good transition for Tim from Robin to something new. he can't be Robin forever, obviously, but there's no reason to put such a rush on it, especially when DC seems to forget his portrayal 90% of the time lmao. anyway i love tim sm

I hope this ramble made the slightest sense it's the middle of the goddamn night and the words are starting to blur together

[ratofthenest]

ok so? absolutely yes??

Finding heteronormative stereotypes in A/B/O is expected, especially with how some writers portray the world, but there's a lot of opportunity for something more. There's so many different ways you can play around with the dynamics, especially in a world where genital has nothing to do with your gender (literally the easiest place to throw in the questioning of ones gender identity)

You are not spouting nonsense I love the way you think

the omegaverse tiktoks are all fun and games till you properly acknowledge how it reflects on our own society and how we treat women.

heat suppressants (and other basic things needed to function) being ridiculously expensive and inaccessible

at the same time, suppressants being something expected for omega's to take and pushed on to them – then shamed when they dont

omega's using dangerous alternatives to said supplements they can't access

a strict societal expectation for omegas to end up with alphas (sounds a bit like heteronormativity to me, no?)

under paid omegas who are treated unfairly in the work environment, pushed to provide form within the home instead

alpha's (men) having a clear privilege in quite literally everything, "top of the food chain"

honestly, the list goes on

[ratofthenest]

I will never have as unhealthy of a relationship with a living human being as I do with fictional characters and fanfic, and I think that’s a very uplifting epiphany 

[ratofthenest]

OH MY?? FUCK YEAH????

Interesting 👀

[ratofthenest]

Something this season of Invincible has been doing that I find interesting is how it's engaging with the Superman archetype in the specific context of his role as the quote-unquote "top superhero-" what happens when "superhero" is enough of a demographic that you've got a bunch of moderately powerful ones, but then you've got one who's basically so overwhelmingly powerful compared to all the rest that from the perspective of the people in charge of planetary security, he's basically the only one who matters. There have been several subtle beats this season about how holding that position is distorting Mark's interactions with everyone around him without him even realizing- Robot leaves the Guardians not because he necessarily thinks Mark is right, but because he thinks it's important to stay on his good side. The Powerplex subplot has Scott's coworkers at the GDA expressly state that Mark is being granted infinitely more leeway by Cecil than anyone else would be, because he's their only plausible answer to the Viltrumites.

What's interesting is how they've made Rex the site of a lot of this. One of the first scenes of the season is him complaining about the needing constant adjustments to the hack-job prosthetic he was issued after the Lizard League debacle, juxtaposed against the bajillion dollar bespoke machine that was built for no purpose other than training Invincible specifically. When they go out into the field together, Rex is perfectly in his element against a single street-level opponent, but when Multipaul jumps him, Invincible has to pull his ass out of the fire via intense meatgrinder violence. It isn't a coincidence that in the same episode where (Debbie's boyfriend) Paul realizes the gulf between the impact his job has on the world and the impact that Mark and Oliver have, with Debbie assures him that it's okay to be normal- Rex gets his fatal crossing-the-Rubicon moment by refusing to retire with Rae.

Rae can read the writing on the wall here about the power scaling of the story she's in; capes like Invincible and Immortal brush off everything the world can throw at them, but she and Rex are gag characters- a couple extra bodies who, in the best case scenario, are somewhat useful to have around, and in the worst case scenario end up in the hospital for months at a time before getting stitched up and thrown back into the fray so the GDA can wring a little more utility out of them. But even though his lifestyle is very clearly going to get him killed, Rex refuses to quit because being a superhero- even a middling one- is all he has going on. He's never going to be as relevant as Invincible because he's nowhere near as powerful as Invincible, but if he doesn't keep throwing himself at the same kinds of problems Invincible does, he'd be nobody. He'd be Paul. Is being Paul worse than dying? Well, we're gonna find out in a minute

[ratofthenest]

I love that Nightwing has files on how to take down all of his friends and they're okay with it, because it's a reasonable point to be made and because he trusts his team to tell them about it. I love that this is one of those crystal clear examples of Dick taking the things Batman does and doing them better, that he's not Batman Lite, but instead that he's Better Than Batman, that's the whole purpose of Nightwing's character, that's everything that Bruce wanted for him, to be the kind of Bat that Bruce sees himself as too damaged to be.

[ratofthenest]

unfortunately i am literally just a bunch of Dazey and the Scouts lyrics taped together

[ratofthenest]

I need to see more people talking about this, it's so heartbreaking I swear

Percy will never be able to celebrate his birthday after the war, not properly, anyway. So many characters died that day, it would be even harder to do so with genuinely any of the other demigods. His birthday's from then on are going to be spent around gravestones and mourning.

this is part of the reason I could never like Luke btw, he consciously made the decision to do this. he turned our main characters day of life into one of death. not to mention, they were expected to win too? it's cruel

[ratofthenest]

me when trans allegory is found literally everywhere i look

[ratofthenest]

while Hylla is absolutely a valid response, i think we really need to take Thalia's nature into account here. She wouldn't do it on purpose, but in her desperation to fix things she would absolutely make them worse. From Luke, to Jason, and everything in between.

*percy, annabeth, and nico were intentionally excluded.

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[ratofthenest]

percy is SUCH an unreliable narrator. we, as the audience, don't truly grasp how horrifyingly dark his world is until we read it through other people's perspectives in HOO. percy will soften a situation with jokes and quips, but this is smth unique to his character. yes its dark yes they're miserable they're kids in a war and they are tired. ALSO percy has huge self esteem issues, proven time and time again throughout the books. he doesn't think himself to be anything special or interesting, which is why we get such a violent whiplash when we first see him through Hazel's POV and how different he seems. all that funny internal dialogue has disappeared and suddenly we're hit with a ✨reality check✨