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actually. the way the post-crisis canon tim was a robin who self-admittedly had to work *a little* bit harder than the others because the physical apsect of the job didn't come *quite* as naturally to him but still managed to overcome it to become one of the best bo staff users (if not the best) in the world and one of the best fighters in the world through years of hard work, determination, and practice due to the fact he had *years* of dedicated training from some of the best fighters in the world starting when he was *13* (including but not limited to bruce, dick, and babs), had several bouts of specialized intense training under people like the rahul lama and lady shiva among others, excelled in holding his own on two seperate superhero teams, was in *at least* two warzones, and survived torture on apokolips is important. that story of hard work and determination and dedication and practice to achieve your dreams is good, actually. and i get annoyed by fanon tim who is bestest boy who's just soooo good at everything and better that everyone else too, but it really bugs me when people (including dc: see td:r!) devalue his years of hard work and dedication to get to where he's at as a physical fighter to be like "well acksually he's the weakest who will never truly be able to reach the others' potential because people who have to work harder will never truly be on the same playing field as people who are naturally skilled". like yea he makes up for some shortcomings with working smarter, not harder but. c'mon. he's got to work a little harder, but he *does* and that's why he's good.

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Thoughts on the different ways Tim and Dick relate to Bruce in self-isolation mode and Batman going off the rails. Because they BOTH have a lot of experience with both situations, but react differently to it.

It’s a reflection on the observation that Dick will walk out on Bruce when he’s in grimdark mode while Tim will cling closer to try and rein him in; while as soon as someone accuses Bruce of killing, Dick refuses to believe it but Tim will be like ‘we have to seriously consider the result if he did’.

Tl;dr they are the only two Robins/ex-Robins with such deep experience with this because they’re the only two who have been left on their own to deal with a Batman being criminally reckless. Jason’s period as Robin somehow never scored a go-around of Bruce going into self-hatred mode (possibly because the amount of stories written about Jason’s period of Robin is realistically under a year’s worth, I don’t care that some timelines suggest he might have been in the costume as much as 2.5 years, there isn’t anywhere near the material for that) and Damian has always, ALWAYS had Dick and/or Tim available to defuse and redirect Bruce, and they both have patented strategies to deal with this.

While Dick acted as a (largely unspecified) handbrake on Bruce up until the grand “You’re Fired!/I Quit!” contretemps, and then developed the far more personally protective strategy of just walking away and letting Bruce deal with it on his own, as they’re both adults and he should not be required to act as emotional regulation for a grown adult. There’s not a lot of ON PANEL discussion of this, between 99% of their period as Batman and Robin being pre-Crisis and the flashbacks we’ve had since then tending to revolve around a few set pieces. But there’s a reason that Bruce describes Dick as his greatest achievement and the most important part of him being Batman. Not disappointing Dick functioned as the brake up until Dick became an adult.

HOWEVER. The only reason Dick was able to get away with his brand new strategy is not that Bruce became better at regulating his own emotions (it is to laugh). Oh no. Alfred and then particularly Tim stepped in to pick up the slack, and pretty much have never stopped since then.

Tim became Robin specifically to stop Batman going off the rails. “Batman needs a Robin”. He saw the violence and he stepped in to find a way to stop it. And when Dick refused to help out, Tim took on the role of emotional regulation buddy and essentially never stopped.

Plus, if Tim did not think the position was important, Knightfall reinforced it in the worst possible way. The arc of Knightfall, for Tim: Bruce pushes Tim away and becomes more exhausted. Tim is assigned to teach JPV how to be a hero. Bruce, trying to do too much on his own, gets his back broken. Bruce assigns Tim to making sure JPV functions as Batman. (Dick turns up for 3 pages to complain that he did not get the mantle and Tim, dealing with Bruce being injured and on a quest, his dad being kidnapped, and the realisation that Azbats is going off the rails ON HIS ASSIGNED WATCH, doesn’t have time to do anything else but sigh and go ‘yeah you’d be better but Bruce set it up this way’). Azbats locks Tim out of the cave. Tim continues to Robin his way around the edges trying to clean up Azbats going off the rails. JPV kills a Rogue and leaves a victim to die. Bruce comes back, deals with Azbats, then disappears off again, giving the mantle to Dick this time. Tim and the rest of us get to experience Prodigal. Bruce comes back again and within no time at all Tim is flinging himself on top of Harvey Bullock to protect him during a shootout in Troika.

Tim came out of Knightfall CONVINCED that his most important job as Robin was to act as emotional regulator. Especially since Alfred quit at this point. “What does a Batman who kills look like” is not an academic question to Tim. It’s not even a “well I’ve seen other timelines” thing for him. Tim has literally been the assigned Robin to a Batman who ended up killing and the death occurred, in part, because Robin couldn’t hold him back.

It’s also notable to me that that one time Tim HAS tried Dick’s “let him deal with it himself” strategy, that was the run of ‘Tec and Batman between Officer Down and Bruce Wayne: Murderer. Alfred had quit again (and was living with Tim at Brentwood, while Bruce refused to go near Alfred). Tim was ignoring Bruce because he told Steph Tim’s identity. Bruce literally only had Sasha Bordeaux (and Steph for a bit) as assistance. And what happened? Bruce ended up accused of murder and was arguably off the rails enough that he COULD have done it, given how much he wasn’t talking to anyone.

Tim has never ever risked that again. He was only able to quit following his 16th birthday for a couple of days before he went straight back to Bruce, not even expecting an apology. Following War Games, War Games, when Tim’s so heartbroken and tired he has to leave Gotham and moves to Bludhaven, Tim is still talking to Bruce and seeing him regularly, because Bruce is all by himself in Gotham again and Tim knows that’s a recipe for him falling off the rails again.

This is part of what I think is at the heart of the debate between Dick and Tim over “growing up and out of being Robin and finding your own identity”. Dick is convinced that you can safely leave Bruce to his bullshit when he’s going off the rails, because Dick was able to walk out and it went fine (Bruce found himself Jason and was just fine…right up until Jason died, but they all got past that time! Bruce doesn’t need this level of coddling! You cannot find who you are apart from Bruce unless you give yourself that separation!), while when Tim tried, Bruce got accused of murder and decided he was going to abandon the whole identity of “Bruce Wayne” until he got his ass kicked by enough family members over how stupid he was being. Tim doesn’t think it’s safe. Tim’s seen Batman and seen Bruce ‘die’ too many times when he needed rescue.

Tim knows Alfred won’t always step up to the role. He’s quit twice and is now dead. Tim knows Dick refuses to act as an emotional regulator for Bruce anymore. Tim simply doesn’t TRUST anyone else with the role as they’ve never had to actively deal with it on their own, and being part of the bigger network is very different to being The One.

And I think this is part of why Tim cannot move himself on. He doesn’t trust Bruce to cope. Even if there are approximately a dozen other Bat folk around to step in if Bruce starts his self-isolation cycle again. Because too many of them historically have gone “well screw you too” when Bruce started the cycle, and the 13 year old kid who talked Batman down from being too violent with criminals, and the 14 year old kid who was left to control a Batman experiencing religious psychosis and got strangled in the process, and the 15 year old kid who hung off Nightwing’s arm to stop him punching the Joker one more time, who left Batman to his own devices only for him to be framed for murder and refuse to try and get out of it, and the 16 year old kid who realised if he quit and left Bruce would never speak to him again so he swallowed it down and reached out again and again and again even as he was hurting, in the worst year of his life, and the 17 year old kid who refused to believe Bruce could be dead and went to find him, damn the consequences to himself? That kid cannot walk away because he KNOWS THE PRICE and he knows what it costs to pay it and he doesn’t trust anyone else to do so.

(yes, Tim should be allowed to have an arc to move away from this dynamic. But I understand why he can’t, and DC will have to have someone ELSE take over the role or commit to writing ‘Batman goes off the rails’ plots where Bruce provides his OWN emotional regulation that pulls him back ahahahahahaha like that will occur)

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Star Sentai ☆ Meteoranger!

Summary: After noticing Chiaki’s strange behavior, the Ryuseitai juniors decide to investigate.

Word Count: 10k Status: Ongoing, Episodic Tags: Canon Compliant, Super Sentai AU

Here is an excerpt:

“Still, you're saying that Taichō is hiding something from us?”

“Whatever it was, it sounded really serious! At the very least, bad enough for Shinkai-dono to try and talk him out of it. But this must have been something they've talked about many times before, by the looks of it.”

“Uumyu… this really is mysterious… I'm bad at solving puzzles so I can't think of a reason. My mind keeps going to really dark places like he's getting threatened by the mafia or something.”

“There's no way it's something that serious, right?” Midori asked, “Were just idols…”

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Hi! I’ve been looking for this tim fic everywhere and I can’t find it so this is me getting desperate lol. Basically the fic is Tim bringing Bruce back from the timestream and they’re waiting in a cave for Clark to get Bruce. Clark doesn’t believe Tim tho so he’s taking a while and Bruce asks what’s taking him so long and Tim is like he doesn’t believe me so Bruce asks to talk to him. Tim comms Clark and Clark is abt to tell Tim that he’s coming he’s just a little busy or smth and Bruce is like

Oh man im sorry I dont think Ive read this before?

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[UPDATE] Unknown Lyrics Found Only In Birdsong - CH3

Excerpt: The kid turned her masked face towards him. She still wasn’t ready for the costume, not yet. But even just seeing her in the domino mask was haunting.

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Ive scrapped chapter 3 of Birdsong more times than i can count… the name and pronoun changes are already a big hurdle for me (and readers) so i have to limit myself a bit when it comes to adding scenes outside of canon, else ill end up writing about someone completely different. I know the way to go though

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Updates for Birdsong will take however long my reread of the comics takes, since I want to be faithful to the canon as much as possible for no real reason.

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Unknown Lyrics Found Only In Birdsong

Summary: For the only child of Jack and Janet Drake, there are two things that are certain in the world: 1. Batman needs Robin. 2. Robin is a boy.

Tags: Crossdressing (probably not how you think), Canon Compliant to DC Comics Pre-Reboot (1991-2011), Gender Exploration, Canon Rewrite.

Relationships: Tim Drake & Batfam, YJ Core Four.

Status: Ongoing. 2/?

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Ive thought of the best way to properly continue the gotham regulars story, i will place some of my time into it but i do want to go through the first prt and fix a few things too

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Hey! Do you have recommendations for fics that center on Tim after Bruce gets back from the time stream? Something that hopefully centers on how he feels about the whole family not believing him+dick taking away Robin from him? Angst, hurt all that good stuff.

This ones a bit hard for me bc i usually have a hard time agreeing with authors takes on the whole Robin Mantle thing…

So all i can offer you is Deadfall (i read it a long time ago and i dont really remember much of it, please forgive me if it doesnt stand up to scrutiny), it is not finished so keep that in mind

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Truck-kun Isekai’d Me And Now I Have To Become Robin To Save Batman?! (Working title)

Fic Summary: An AU where Tim Drake is a comic book reader from our world transported into the comic book world. As well as an AU where said Tim Drake gets transported back to the real world from the comic book world.

“What did Tim want? As a reader, what would be the best conclusion to such a tragic story? To him, what would be satisfying?

This was an opportunity he couldn’t miss. This was the closest to influencing the story he would ever get. It was a chance for growth and for redemption. For Batman, for the writers... and for him.

“I want to save Batman.”

Setting: Canon Compliant to Preboot, N52 and Rebirth. This work is a Portal fantasy but more specifically an isekai/reverse isekai. Tim Drake centric.

Status: Ongoing.

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Borrowed Time (Update)

Chapter 6: “You’re not my errand dog and you’re not working for me. We’re working together , and unlike you that means something to me.” He turned away from Anarky. “It means I’ve got your back, even if you don’t have mine. For the time being, you’re my responsibility,”

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Borrowed Time - AO3

Fic Summary: Robin knows he shouldn't trust his own rogues. Thats vigilantism 101, you give them an inch and then you end up in jail, or worse, dead.

But when the only way to get to the bottom of a conspiracy is to cooperate with Anarky—the troublemaking anarchist who's come the closest to becoming his equal—then he's willing to take his chances. For justice.

Or at least, that was what he told everyone else. He's not so sure anymore.

Relationship: Tim Drake/Lonnie Machin

Setting: Canon Divergent. Preboot, between One Year Later and Batman RIP (the red and black costume era).

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Out of context pictures of tiny tim

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GOTHAM REGULARS: Part I

Wordcount: 83k (24 chapters/Complete)

Relationship: Dick & Jason & Tim, Dick & Damian, Tim & Barbara. Good ol friendship.

Summary: (AU where the kids who would be batmans sidekicks happen to be the same age)

There was a circus, there was a fall, there was a boy and there was a bat. It’s a story everyone knows. But there’s a few details in that story that are wrong. It wasn’t just one boy, for starters.

There was a circus and a fall. Everything that came after is a bit more complicated.

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Feather Light

Fic Summary: It seemed ironic to him now that after getting shrunken all his other problems suddenly appeared to be so little. (Or in other words this is a shrinking case fic.)

Word Count: 18k || Completed

Relationships: Tim Drake & YJ Core Four, Tim & Tam Fox, Tim & Dick Grayson, Tim & Damian Wayne

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None of that Hasbro stuff.

Fic Summary: The one where the gang performs a seance for fun.