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silverwhittlingknife · 1 year

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Dick resurrecting Bruce via Lazarus Pit and his reasons for doing so left a bad taste in my mouth. Especially when Dick tried to talk Tim out of it. I don't like it. I wish Tim found out about it and... Had a serious discussion with him? Hit him? Left? I dunno.

Oh man, it's hard for me to talk about this one without the Doylist approach. I'm gonna come back to these panels, but I just want to leave them here as a contrast between how Dick is written in his solo vs. how he's written in Batman and Robin:

Dick: Tim... I ... where does it stop, right? What about your mom, then? My mom and dad? Bruce's...? (Nightwing 139)

Dick: This isn't just "loved ones," Alfie. It's Bruce Wayne, the Batman. He saved our lives, he saved the city and the world how many times? (Batman and Robin 9)

I have SUCH complicated feelings about the Morrison Batman and Robin run? I like a lot of the Dick-Damian-Alfred dynamics, and I love the idea of villain!Jason as a major antagonist for DickBats, and I love what I think is the concept of the Lazarus Pit arc, which is that Dick's slowly crumbling under the pressure of being Batman and Jason's taunting is the last straw that finally pushes him to make a terrible mistake.

But I don't like the execution of the Lazarus Pit arc, and the disregard for big chunks of post-Crisis continuity and characterization is sooo frustrating. ("I don't like to plan"/pro-Lazarus-Pit!Dick, cartoonishly-evil!Talia, redhead!Jason, etc.)

And yet. AND YET. So many of the concepts are so good! The execution is so messy, but the concepts are so good! I want to tear it all up and then put it lovingly back together but different sdfdsfs

I had a lot of thoughts, so below the cut:

Why characterizations in B&R are a huge departure from previous continuity (Doylist version)

Why the Lazarus Pit arc COULD BE SO GOOD though (and how we can make it work with Watsonian reasoning)

Finally getting back to your question - how would Tim react? (tl;dr probably with concern and worry?)

Characterization Changes

Just to give you a bit of an idea of how abrupt a departure B&R is from Dick's solo, here are some panels showing some major changes.

1) Dick on Lazarus Pits: Pro or Against?

Here's Dick arguing against using the Lazarus Pit and telling Tim it won't bring back the soul in Nightwing 139:

Here's Dick doubling down on the evilness of the Lazarus Pit when Ra's taunts him with it post-Bruce's death in Nightwing 152:

But here's Dick arguing that the Lazarus Pit will be fine and that he doesn't believe in "prophecies of doom" in Batman and Robin 7 (and indeed, also in B&R, he'll kill and resurrect Kate with zero consequences - convenient!):

2) Talia: protective or cruel?

Here's Talia worrying about Damian's safety and teaming up with the Batfamily to try to save him from Ra's in Resurrection:

But here's Talia smirking after telling Damian they're enemies now and she's going to replace him with a clone in Batman and Robin 12:

3) Dick and planning

Here's Dick-the-planner in Nightwing 142:

Tim: That's a lotta ordnance. Dick: Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.

But here's Dick the impulsive leap-before-you-look guy in Batman and Robin 9:

Dick: ... Okay, I'm sorry - I don't like to plan, I work without a net... I'm not Bruce.

4) Resurrection: the right choice or the wrong choice (part 2)

Here's Dick telling Tim he made the right choice (not trying to resurrect anyone) in Nightwing 139:

But here's Dick insisting that resurrecting Bruce would've been the right choice in Batman and Robin 9:

This is one of those "clearly some people were writing angry letters to the editor" moments sdfdsfds, because it's awkwardly attempting to address Dick's abrupt about-face but the writer still hasn't read the issues in question because

a) Alfred has no way of knowing Dick's previous stance and it's incredibly weird that he would, b) "cautioned against" the Pit is a lot milder than "had a fist-fight with Tim about it," c) Dick's argument has shifted from "the Pit is an eldritch evil that's untrustworthy and probably soulless" to "look, resurrection is a special thing, and not all loved ones are important enough for resurrection," which, uh, okayyyy, and d) Dick is still full-naming "Tim Drake" as if he's a business associate and they had an argument about how to properly file paperwork and now it looks like Tim Drake was right after all, as opposed to Dick's little brother that he had a huge fight with and who subsequently ran away from home insisting that their dad was alive and that he was gonna prove it and now it turns out their dad is alive

Why This Arc Could Be Great Though

Listen, Dick-driven-to-the-Lazarus-Pits is a great concept. I love narrative foils. I love Dick ending up in the exact same place that Tim was in Resurrection, and even though he knows better. I love Dick being that desperate. Here's the setup:

Damian's back gets broken, Alfred takes him to get emergency treatment from Talia but it's not clear if he'll recover,

villain!Jason taunts Dick about not caring about Bruce,

Dick's been slowly crumbling under the pressure of being Batman and between the guilt of Damian being injured and the blow of Jason's accusations (not to mention having to fight villain!Jason and get him arrested), this is the last straw,

he decides to resurrect Bruce even though he knows perfectly well this is a terrible idea because he was the one who talked Tim out of it

he heads off to do this incredibly stupid thing and nobody stops him because normally on the rare occasions Dick's out-of-control Tim shows up and stops him (Hugo Strange, the Joker) but Tim isn't here and actually the strain of that ongoing estrangement is probably also contributing to Dick's isolation and terrible decision-making

the attempted resurrection goes horribly and Dick has to fight a grotesque parody of his tragically-dead father

I love this idea!! I love it when characters make stupid emotional decisions with terrible consequences!! I love the ways Dick and Tim's arcs intersect and parallel each other!!

And I think this could absolutely be in-character for Dick. He knows it's wrong and a bad idea, but he's desperate and pushed to his limits and grasping at straws? Yeah. I can see it.

BUT yeah, not in love with the execution. My conclusion is that more people should write about this arc in fanfic. <3

How Would Tim React?

I think it depends on where you put Tim in the story?

Options that come to mind:

Tim finds out mid-adventure: Tim's semi-teaming-up with Ra's and underground in a League base - and suddenly he stumbles on Dick sneaking in with (apparently) Bruce's dead body! In this case, I think Tim's first reaction is defensiveness about his own behavior and assuming he's being spied on, and it only slowly dawns on him that Dick's up to something. I'd really want to somehow maneuver a physical fight where Tim tries to stop him, so you get a direct reversal of Resurrection, but mmmm I'm a little stuck on how to get there since Tim's working theory is that the body isn't Bruce's body, so I don't see why he'd be opposed to Dick dumping it in? But anyway, they should have a physical fight and a direct parallel where Tim realizes he needs to back off and let Dick decide, and then they hug ;_; I feel like to make this one work you need Tim really invested in stopping Dick, so uhhhhh maybe for some reason Tim's "rescue Bruce from time" plan requires the body of the clone? So Dick CAN'T put it in the Lazarus Pit, or Bruce will be LOST FOREVER?

Tim gets told about it after the fact: So uhhh for example, Ra's finds out about Dick's botched resurrection attempt and tells Tim about it in an attempt to paint Dick as a hypocrite/ entice Tim into using the Lazarus Pit. I feel like Tim would just straight-up not believe him? But let's say that Tim finds out for sure - either Dick admits it to him, or he sees some League recording, or whatever. I'm not really sure how Tim would react? Worried, probably, because it's out-of-character, and I feel like Tim might wonder if it's really him or if he's under magical influence or something? And uhhhh then ideally Tim realizes that no, it was because he was having a really hard time ;_; and then Tim is worried about him and comforting and/or apologetic and probably Dick is probably also apologetic and then they hug <3.

Alternate third terrible possibility: it is Bruce's body, he was dead and Tim was just in denial, Dick resurrects him but there are some kind of eldritch evil consequences, and then Dick has to call Tim back and they have to fight undead!Bruce together. I like this one >:D

#i have various scribbles of a semi-novelization of batman & robin in the thousand ninjas 'verse #because i am actually really attached to a lot of aspects of this goofy comic sdfdsfs #when it's good it's very good - it's just that when it's bad it's horrid #and isn't that all of comics in a nutshell....#ask tag #dick & tim #dick grayson #tim drake

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lolottes · 9 months

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Justice Poké league

So basically it was a reblog answer but it's LONG and not in the initial sudjet so I'm making it its own post

@radiance1

hum, I already think that some would be evolutions (superman or Oracle) and others not

clark ken - normal -lvlup-> superman steel flying (can return to normal type with the item Glasses)

batman - fighting dark (Infiltrator)

wonder woman - fighting fairy

Flash - normal electric ?

green lantern : then particular case I think that green lantern would be a talent which makes the type psychic with the ring

GL Hal Jordan: flying maiby flying steel -> flying spychic

GL Kyle Rayner: fairy (because Ion is an artist, nothing to do with his sexual orientation -_-)

GL John Stewart: psychic ??? for me architect = wall and it's psychic attacks maybe then he is twice psychic so double stab and resistance and double weakness?

so I don't know him, but I know things, he was accused of terrorism and has an occasional vision of the future, so fire if you want to have a bad sense of humor or dark because his vision reminds me absol soooo GL Simon Braz: Dark

GL Jessica Cruz .... I have NO idea what she was doing as a civilian before being pushed to be a heroine

Martian Manhunter: spychic ghost, why ghost, for the change in density, the invisibility but also because mourning is part of him and his writing

Aquaman: water (dum)

Green Arrow : normal (the pure normal type is legitimate! and is not just lame! please, the 1g meta was dominated by them, they often have a move set diversify and the move set aspect hyper difersify fits like a glove a green arrow) and if you are really anti normal then fighting

Zatanna: psychic (of course)

Constantine: Dark ghost (I mean… cursed and sold his soul + demon blood)

Cyborg electric steel

Shazam electric flying

Blue Beetle electric bug

Dr Fate : ghost phychic or an item that adds the ghost type on a spychic type and spychic otherwise

Booster Gold: Dark (he can go back in time and become thanks to the action of stealing the museum in which he works)

Hawkman flying dark (traitor / double agent)

hawkwoman flying fighting (or steel or electric with his mace)

batgirl: fighting -> Oracle: spychic

plastic man civil dark (voleur) -> hero: ground dark so I know that this choice seems strange BUT! he is a fan of puns and he tries to "bury" his thief reflex / his kleptomania … in addition the plastic is immune to electricity sooo ground

Starfire: fairy / fire all space related pokemon tend to be either phychic or fairy but as flying and psychic are already very representative and that his power comes from his emotions finally

Robin (Dick): flying fairy -> Nightwing: flying dark (with access to electric attacks)

Robin (Dick): flying fairy ->Red X: Dark fairy (so, i like the idea of a pokemon that always changes one of its types to dark as it evolves and that type has different aspects (wrongdoing / obscurity) depending on evolution and it's a different type that gets lost during evolution. Red X and above all a thief and not by real choice at first, I'm not going to dwell too much, but the image of him having his wings clipped is just too lively and poetic to pass up)

Jason préRobin : fighting dark (tire theft) -> Robin (Jason): fighting fairy -die in a fight after gaining a level (so in a trainer fight / serious fight)-> red hood Ghost Dark/Fairy like this one I think I have to explain it: for how it evolves, yep to make it possible only against a trainer who can kill it and after having already fought well, it's original, but given the methods of he evolution introduced in legend is not out of place either. For the ossilation between two types, dark is for rage pits and fairy because its goal is always the revival of the alley of crime, moreover the contrast seems cool to me :3

tim prés robin: Dark -> Robin (Tim) Dark fairy (-> stalker=Dark and so far fairy for all the robins because they supposed to represent hope) -> red robin : ..... dark losing robin's mantle makes him lose the fairy type without preventing him from learning fairy attacks, moreover it's an evolution that has been reversed so … red robin is a mega evolution?

Robin (Damien): Ghost fairy (I hesitated, but I wanted a different type for each robin and the al gull lineage is associated with lazarus and death. As long as he follows the blood heritage mentality he stays in the al gull mentality and therefore the ghost type for me)

Beast boy: normal protéen

Raven: Dark fairy (fairy and not psychic because its powers are dependent on its emotion (like starfire) and the aspect controls darkness and more obvious than the purely magical aspect

hum, I think we've covered this important enough or that I feel comfortable enough to have an opinion.

BUT I would like your opinion on how the DC heroes or characters would be as pokemon.

at firstI also wanted to give them ability and secret Ability but I've been there for hours and my pc has already overheated once ^^'

#justice league #dc comics #dc heroes #crossover #pokemon crossover #pokemon #Justice Poké league

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isfjmel-phleg · 7 months

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Chris wasn't around long enough to make very many friends or join a team like Kon and Jon do, but he did have a brief acquaintance with the much older Tim.

In Superman #668, Clark brings Chris with him on an errand to the Batcave.

While their fathers talk, Tim (who at this point is sixteen or seventeen) takes it upon himself to entertain their young guest, and he and Chris compare notes about being adopted and having powers. Or not, in Tim's case. Chris is currently struggling with having to hide his powers in public, and Tim shows him that it doesn't have to be such a limiting experience.

And he teaches him some acrobatics.

They hit it off quite well.

For context, this takes place not too long after Tim meets Damian, who is about four years older than Chris, and they of course didn't get along at all. So Tim is struggling with insecurity about his adopted position now that Damian has shown up and flaunted his blood son status, and multiple people close to him have died recently. He's not in a great place, as will become evident in the "Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul" arc, which happened right after this issue.

So it's good for him to interact with a child who is happily adopted and sees no shame in it. His interactions with Chris read a bit like how it should have gone between him and his new brother. Meanwhile, it's also good for Chris to be around a hero closer to his age (...still significantly older but broadly they're both kids) who is kind to him. He's had very few positive relationships and no contact with other people most of his life, and school's been a difficult adjustment.

And this meeting leaves an impression on him. When Chris says goodbye to Clark before going back to the Phantom Zone, he lists meeting Robin among the things he's grateful to have had during his time on Earth.

When he returns to Earth, aged up to an adult, and needs some non-Kryptonian help, Tim is the one he turns to (in World's Finest 2009 #1). Unfortunately, he happens to catch Tim at the worst time possible--in his Red Robin era.

At first, Tim excitedly mistakes Chris for Kon when he shows up and uses TTK (a recently acquired power) to help him in a fight.

But his smile fades when it turns out to be Nightwing. And not even the one he knows. So Chris reveals himself and invokes their old acquaintance.

Tim's not overly impressed, and he requires an explanation. Chris's girlfriend Thara (Flamebird) needs help that he can't provide on his own, and Chris doesn't know where else to go.

At first Tim turns him down. Rather harshly, too. "Helping other people isn't my job anymore," he claims and refers him to Batman and Robin because "I don't have time for this."

This is not a normal response for Tim. This is the grief and depression talking. But Chris finally wears him down by telling him how much Thara means to him. Tim has lost people he loves too. He can't say no now.

Between him and Chris, they manage a successful rescue, and Chris is very grateful.

Even so, their friendly acquaintance is never quite rekindled, and Tim leaves Chris and Thara abruptly. He of course doesn't explain what's going on with him, but Thara is concerned about him.

And yet apparently Tim expressed concern about them! Deflection, perhaps?

Chris doesn't get the chance to meet Tim again once things are better. Another instance of a friendship that never got to go anywhere.

(Chris and Damian would have been an interesting contrast, too, but obviously that never happened either.)

#comicsposting again #CK: a good kid with bad parents #TD: he lived so others wouldn't die #while I'm on this topic #I promise I'm done for tonight

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incoherentbabblings · 2 years

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Imma say it but:

Tim + Dick being brothers > Any other platonic relationship in the Batfam.

(This may be due to me growing up reading Tim as Robin and big brother Nightwing but I still think they're relationship is the best, even during great times of strain they have a deep underlying trust for one another that they will still be there for one another.

But that's just me.

Plus, it beats Tim + Jason which kind of happened with no explanation.)

My favourite is the triangle between Bruce>Dick>Damian>Bruce because I love that dynamic of 'I'm not your parent' until it's far too late and then it's 'oh no I am your parent' and then in hindsight you realise how much you screwed the kid over, and then in a cyclical moment where Dick is Batman the same age Bruce was and Damian is the same age Dick was and the whilst Bruce took Dick on out of empathy and sympathy and - I think - genuinely good intentions (but not well thought out actions and consequences) Dick does it purely out of duty and then you get to watch it turn into less duty and more want and then you get to watch further contrasts and comparisons grow.

Dick makes similar mistakes as Bruce like letting Damian believe his ability to stay in Gotham is directly tied to being Robin and never picking up on that insecurity, however unlike Bruce Dick is just... better for this kid? And does right by him so often. So it's like do we view this as Dick being Bruce's success story? How Bruce helped Dick which in turn allowed him to help Damian? Or do we say Dick's breaking a potential cycle before it has the chance to even form.

And then we have things like the fact that Dick didn't trust Bruce with Damian at all but also didn't trust himself and didn't want to insert and take on the role of dad which he thought belonged to someone else which is the exact same thing Bruce thought and oh my gosh.

So. I like that triangle of a relationship best. But, I do think Dick and Tim have the most naturally developed and healthy relationship. The organic trust that the build up over two decades is just so well done, to the point of - even when they aren't totally on great terms - Tim still comes running when Dick calls, and Dick trusts Tim with no more information at his disposal than 'Trust me'. I love them truly and you're totally right, they are by far one of the better and more well developed relationships. Tim and Dick were calling each other brothers before they shared a father after all.

Now bring it back DC you flipping...

#dc #dick grayson #tim drake #bruce wayne #batfam meta #ask and i'll babble

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bigskydreaming · 3 years

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I am looking (disrespectfully) at the trope of Bruce and other family members only seeming to respect Dick’s wishes when doing so aligns with what they already wanted to do.

Let’s go to the examples!

1) Bruce not broaching adoption with Dick because he wants to respect Dick’s first parents and feels like he would be taking their place or overstepping or putting himself in between Dick and his memories of his parents. Sometimes its cited that Dick himself expressed this wish early on after his parents died, sometimes its not and this is still just upheld as Bruce’s reasoning for not adopting Dick before he was already well into adulthood.

THE FATAL FLAW (in mine own personal opinion, natch. Personal mileage may vary, check your speedometer to be safe):

This particular plot point or tangle is in my experience ALWAYS paired with Bruce’s own insecurities about his role in Dick’s life, or not wanting to push that or receive an answer he doesn’t want to or is afraid to hear. Sometimes its about his fears of unworthiness to be Dick’s actual parent, etc, etc. But the bottom line is, there is always the presence of SOME element (and not a small one) in which Bruce’s own self-interest or feelings are protected by him NOT broaching the adoption conversation with Dick and having to confront these fears head on.

This is additionally juxtaposed with the problem that although there’s a lot of variance in regards to stories where Bruce fired Dick versus stories where Dick gave up being Robin and moved on to Nightwing voluntarily....there’s NOT a lot of stories where Dick makes Jason Robin himself or is asked by Bruce first. The part where Bruce takes this initiative on his own, without thinking through its repercussions on Dick emotionally.....this is practically always present.

Now, the problem here is that......Dick became or began becoming Robin well into his time with Bruce. Its frequently cited as the thing that began allowing them to truly connect, their time training and acting as Batman and Robin.

Meaning no matter WHAT interpretation you go with as to why specifically Dick chose the name Robin, whether it was a family nickname or an homage to Robin Hood.....the fact remains, NOTHING of Robin, THEMATICALLY, nothing that spoke to Dick in regards to what he wanted Robin to be - specifically in honor of his parents because avenging his parents and making sure what happened to them didn’t happen to others like, this was literally a key part of what bonded Dick and Bruce, the fact that Bruce was TRYING to help Dick specifically BECAUSE they shared this particular overlap of purpose - like the bottom line is, nothing about Robin CAME from Bruce. Or Dick’s feelings about Bruce. That....didn’t really even exist yet, at the time he created Robin. Everything about Robin, other than the physical costume itself, not even the design just the actual creation of it....all of that came from BEFORE he met Bruce. None of it was thoughts or feelings derived from BRUCE. Its the whole reason Dick was never Batkid or Batlad, or any derivative of Batman.

It all, ALL came from what Dick came to the manor WITH. Remnants of his life with his first family.

So the fatal flaw of Bruce’s reasoning that by not broaching the subject of adoption with Dick before well into adulthood, he was actually just respecting Dick’s relationship with his first parents and not trying to come between them and Dick’s memories and feelings about them....

All of this is inherently undermined by Bruce’s own actions.....when by repurposing Robin to ANY degree, even just to give the mantle to Jason.....this meant that he was inherently viewing Robin as being more about being Batman’s partner, HIS partner....then it was about being Dick’s heritage, his last intangible keepsake of his first family and life BEFORE Bruce.

In effect....Bruce making Jason Robin or firing Dick as Robin, either way....both betray Bruce’s OWN alleged intentions for only wanting to respect Dick’s relationship with his parents, and that being why he didn’t want to overstep by trying to impose or even ask for his own official parent/child relationship with Dick. Because that’s exactly what appropriating the Robin mantle was. It was Bruce ignoring the relationship Dick had with his parents and their memory and the fact that Robin was directly born of that....and making Robin entirely about Bruce’s OWN relationship with Dick, heedless of any other factors.

And the second Bruce did that.....his entire justification for not raising the adoption issue....disappears. It goes away. Because you can’t claim inaction being just a result of not wanting to disrespect something you’ve already voided respect for. No matter whether Bruce INTENDED it or not.....by crossing this boundary, Bruce already acted against Dick’s feelings in this regard and well, disregarded them....which makes claims of Bruce not raising the adoption issue pretty much JUST self-serving at that point. Its an alleged viewpoint of Dick’s that Bruce largely just ASSUMES....and only ultimately respects - in direct contrast to how he didn’t respect the associations Dick had with Robin - because it aligns with something Bruce ALREADY wanted to do, rather than what Dick actually wanted. It provided justification for Bruce to just....not have a conversation he was afraid to have. And that’s about Bruce at that point. Its not about Dick. Its just like...not.

2) Another example of this that is not unique to just Bruce, but recurs frequently in both canon and fanfics in Dick’s dynamics with other characters he’s close with.....is characters not apologizing for things they’ve done to Dick or raising the issue of things they did a long time ago but never apologized for....while claiming to do so because they thought DICK didn’t want to talk about it.

THE FATAL FLAW (in my own personal opinion. Nuances and variations may not be identical at all store locations, please see your local branch for details):

The particular problem I have here is that....Dick never ever ever in the history of ever and also the before ever time.....has EVER expressed a desire to avoid confrontation.

Like. That’s what he DOES. That’s his JAM. That’s literally CITED time and time again as one of the reasons he’s viewed as more of a people person and natural team leader than Bruce and other Batfam members....because he’s not afraid to cut straight (or bi) to the heart of the matter and air out a dispute.

In fact, this very character trait is one of the ones most commonly utilized AGAINST Dick in various depictions of him, as he’s often cited as TOO confrontational, TOO eager for a fight or conflict especially when his temper is engaged, such as when he’s well....personally hurt or offended.

So how does it follow, then, that avoiding tough conversations ONLY when its on the OTHER person to INITIATE, because they were the ones who DID the wrong-doing and Dick the subject of that rather than the instigator....how does it work, exactly, that these are the only times in which we DON’T tend to see a direct conversation about the harms done and the fallout that resulted? With it being claimed that this is solely for Dick’s benefit, out of a desire to avoid pulling him into an allegedly unnecessary (but really just unpleasant) confrontation?

When the concurrent reality is that whether stated or acknowledged or not.....avoiding these specific conversations and ONLY these conversations (as there never seems to be a problem finding canon or fanfic stories in which Dick apologizes for harm HE’S caused to others or is clearly expected to).....this avoidance also carries the side benefit of allowing the character who DID something wrong to Dick to....not ever have to have that super uncomfortable conversation in which they actually verbally acknowledge the thing they did to him and the effects it had on him, and apologize for that.....and then render themselves vulnerable to actually hearing whether or not he accepts their apology or is still upset with them regardless.

While - as long as they DON’T ever have this conversation, for whatever reason - they can look to the clear and consistent precedent of Dick continuing to work with people who have done things like oh, I don’t know....punched him in the face cuz they’re mad at him (and this isn’t a Bruce critical point, this is a whole damn family critical point as the only one who HASN’T actually done this is Duke. Well, Cass technically just threw him out a window, but I mean, tomato toh-mah-to). Writers and characters both can lean on the fact that actually Dick has a pretty clear track record of ultimately giving up a grudge or at least showing a willingness to look past those grudges enough that it doesn’t prevent him from still maintaining or resuming some kind of relationship with the person who hurt him.

And thus, like Example Numero Uno......this ultimately just lets other characters off the hook while claiming to do Dick a favor, but actually Dick receives no real benefit from it and instead now just has another instance of characters saying “see we respect your wishes” when ultimately their inaction is MORE in service to their own wishes and self-interests.

2b) See also the variation of this in which characters such as Bruce, Jason, Tim and assorted others like....are written specifically determining that they’re not going to apologize to Dick or beg his forgiveness because they feel they don’t DESERVE to be forgiven, and once again....its in HIS best interests that they not even give him the opportunity to say he forgives them....because they know Dick Grayson of course, and they know he’s too forgiving for his own good, so its better to like....not make it ever a possibility in this particular instance.

With the problem here being like.....Dick can’t and shouldn’t be expected to KNOW that’s their logic? So....all he’s going to actually SEE is loved ones just....not expressing remorse for hurting him or acknowledgment it even happened? Which....hurts?

So......hurting your loved one MORE after already hurting them....because you don’t feel you deserve to be forgiven for hurting them in the first place and are actually PROTECTING them from being hurt more when mistakenly forgiving you.....by.....hurting and continuing to hurt them with your silence and lack of evident remorse....

Mmmm.....

Its not the best approach, y’know?

Flaws are detected.

3) Dick’s friends and family manipulating situations in order to get the end result THEY desire, while claiming to do so for his benefit only. Dick being willing to manipulate people to achieve his own ends comes up a LOT actually....but there’s relatively little examination of how often people do this to him, claiming his best interests but really just circumventing his clearly stated desires for independence and the right to make his own choices about what HE needs....or when this is brought up, its usually limited to JUST Bruce doing it, but uh....no that ain’t it.

Specific examples of this are like when Wally joins the 1999 version of the Titans specifically to get Dick to join up, because in his estimation Dick needs more of a social life and is drowning himself with his responsibilities....and then quits not long after Dick is finally officially invested in staying with the team. Another example is when Roy gets Dick to join the Outsiders based entirely on his pitch of NOT treating the team like a family, like they did with the Titans, so that Dick could keep emotional distance and not be as worried about losing them like he suffered from losses like Donna....with his claim again being that he worried about Dick in the aftermath of that loss, etc.

And to be clear! Its not that I think Wally and Roy and others who do similar things have NEGATIVE intentions in mind for Dick. That’s the whole point of this post.....like the other examples, I fully believe THEY believe (or writers believe when writing them this way) that they have Dick’s best interests in mind and not their own. I just....disagree.

THE FATAL FLAW (at least as I see it here):

Is that I view this and Batfam members who do similar stuff as like.....falling into the trap of the savior friend complex. Its that thing when you see a friend hurting, and over time get FRUSTRATED by seeing this when a solution seems obvious to you but think they won’t take it because they’re too stubborn or don’t know what’s best for them....with this specifically recurring a LOT with Dick in particular, due to his core characterization of wanting to be the one to make his own choices. The problem here, same as the problem with the savior friend complex....is that it treats the subject of these views as like....incapable of determining what they need. Its a tacit condemnation that they actually don’t know how to cope with things and are doing it wrong - even though the ones making this assessment will never be the ones actually having to LIVE with the outcome of their meddling. Its the conviction that someone like Dick needs to be HANDLED, for his own good....because he can’t be trusted to KNOW what he needs, not as well as them at least.....and so they jump to manipulation rather than just....ASK him what he needs, or HOW they can best support him, or even just WHY he’s making the choices he is.

For instance, the problem with what Wally did was never that Dick wasn’t struggling. He was. He was drowning in his responsibilities, he had very little to no life outside of them.....Wally is not remotely in the wrong for WANTING to do something to change this situation. The problem is Wally basically defaulted to just...HANDLING his friend by restarting the Titans just to give Dick a social life again, which is pretty much a line straight out of the comics...and basically railroaded right over Dick’s initial ‘no’ when he first heard the proposal. And kept pushing things until Dick eventually joined up in order to get Wally to commit to the team too, because Wally spun it as though Dick was helping Wally by getting Wally to commit to the team for the very same reasons Wally wanted Dick to. And then....right after that, Wally quit to go back to just focusing on the Justice League, which was part of what Dick predicted would happen all along.

The thing was.....at no point along the way did Wally actually ask WHY Dick initially said no....he jumped straight to assuming his own view of the problem, that Dick just COULDN’T be made to ever see the reason to take a break occasionally and put his mental and emotional health as a priority. If he’d done this, Wally could have had dozens of other options to achieve his desired end result....he could’ve like....set up regular hangouts with Dick.

But Wally jumped to assuming he knew the answer, he knew what was best for Dick, and that Dick’s logic was inherently self-destructive and self-flagellating.....and he felt the solution was to bring back the Titans, as he recalled their earlier times as Titans together as a time when Dick was better able to balance his social life and responsibilities.

But by not ever stopping to LISTEN to why Dick felt the way he did and was initially opposed to rejoining the Titans....Wally overlooked one crucial fact: He isn’t Dick.

And more important, his view of the past wasn’t Dick’s view of the past.

Wally was a lot more capable of viewing the Titans as not just a family, but an inherent social life, a hangout, a kind of club....because that’s what it had always been to him.

But he’d never been the leader.

Throughout all their childhoods, the whole time the Titans WERE all of the above, and relatively light-hearted in comparison to their older selves....Dick STILL had the weight of responsibilities that none of the others had by virtue of just...not being the leader. Ultimately, all of their lives were in HIS hands. He was the one calling the shots. The buck stopped with him.

And this is precisely WHY Dick had gotten to the point he had in adulthood. It wasn’t because he’d changed. It wasn’t because he’d stopped figuring out what he needed and how to take care of himself. Its because the position he’d ALWAYS been in as leader....has WEIGHT. That eventually added up more and more and weighed him down. A huge part of the reason Dick had ended up leaving the Titans in the first place, before they disbanded prior to the 1999 revival....is because of the sheer WEIGHT of all the deaths and misfortunes that had befallen the Titans....and how much he and he alone struggled with it in ways the others didn’t....because they didn’t have to. It hadn’t been their plans, their calls, their RESPONSIBILITY to find a way the others could have all made it out alive or at least less traumatized.

So.....of COURSE Dick said no when Wally first proposed restarting the Titans, before Wally defaulted to using his own membership as a lure to get Dick to agree.....because......nothing about the above paragraph had changed, via Wally’s ‘plan.’ It wasn’t because Dick just didn’t KNOW how to be a fully rounded person....it was because nobody was helping him find actual OPTIONS for doing that....that didn’t just double as MORE responsibilities! Because that’s exactly what ended up happening! Dick wound up the leader of the Titans again, just as responsible and just as invested as always.....just like he always knew he would....and also as he knew would happen...Wally ended up quitting not long into it and persuading Jessie Quick to step in as his replacement....aka just one more person for Dick to worry about when it wasn’t like he was going to be worrying any less about Wally, just now he wasn’t going to have Wally there to even POTENTIALLY be able to support him when tragedy inevitably struck because they’re freaking superheroes....and instead he’d just have another person looking to him for the answers but with no reason or chance of being the support Dick could ACTUALLY use at times like that!

Wally’s manipulations circumvented Dick’s opinion that no, actually he knew what was best for him and it wasn’t what Wally was suggesting....without actually accounting for the fact that hey, Dick might actually know that. And in the end, Wally got the result he was after, he got to feel that he’d HELPED his friend....which again, this isn’t WRONG to WANT to....but Dick didn’t...exactly....benefit from this. It wasn’t actually in his best interests ultimately.

I mean...see Donna’s death for details.

And in the aftermath of THAT....Roy essentially did exactly what Wally did....just in REVERSE! Roy got Dick to agree to lead the Outsiders, to shoulder responsibility once again....by promising that Dick WOULDN’T have to view them as family. And did Dick go too far and end up TOO uncaring about their welfare? Yup! No disagreements there! Problem is though....he only ended UP in that situation because yet again a friend thought they KNEW the solution to what Dick needed.....only for Dick to end up essentially punished and further self-blaming....just for doing exactly what Roy had told him TO do, with this particular team. Again - Roy hadn’t EXPECTED Dick to take it this far. But that’s the whole point! Roy had expectations about what Dick would ACTUALLY end up doing, that didn’t match up to the pitch Roy actually gave Dick to GET his agreement.....because Roy all along was of the assumption that by virtue of being Dick Grayson, he wouldn’t be ABLE to avoid connecting with these new teammates and viewing them as family, and thus he’d end up ‘snapping out of it’ with it being the funk he’d been in since Donna’s death.

Roy’s intentions might have been noble, once again.....but his methods stuck to the same pattern of people around Dick believing they knew what he needed or knew who he was or knew what it meant to BE Dick Grayson....better than Dick actually did...particularly when Dick said no, this isn’t what I need or this isn’t a good idea or just...I don’t want to do this.

And in the end....its Dick who ended up paying the price for it, as well as the people who got hurt because of his INTENTIONAL emotional distance.....because the ‘view all surrounding people as new surrogate family’ aspect of the Dick Grayson Experience hadn’t kicked in as Roy thought inevitably would....but the ‘view all this as directly my fault and suffer guilt for it forevermore’ aspect of the Dick Grayson Experience most certainly did! Not at all actually helped along by the fact that like....Roy also expressed frustration with Dick that like.....Dick hadn’t actually responded to Roy’s intended manipulation of his emotions the way Roy had expected him to when he EXPRESSLY TOLD DICK TO BEHAVE THE WAY THAT DICK ULTIMATELY BEHAVED. (Just, he didn’t tell Dick to dial that all the way up to Extra, but given that’s the only setting Dick does ANYTHING at, I feel its a possible outcome Roy should have at least considered. I mean, wasn’t the whole point that you know Dick Grayson better than he knows himself?)

But lo, I am salty.

LMAO, but I mean, you get it right? Obviously, I LIKE Wally and Roy. I LIKE Jason, etc. I’m not saying all of this to be like ugh how dare these characters do all this to Dick....I’m saying it because like.....they all keep falling into the same patterns of making a big fuss and acknowledgment of how much Dick prioritizes being able and free to make his own choices and decide what’s best for him and what HE wants.....

But without ever like....actively asking him AT THE RELEVANT TIME....what he thinks and feels about all this. What he thinks and feels he needs. What he ACTUALLY wants from them, or why he’s ACTUALLY saying no to something and maybe it being for reasons that aren’t just him inherently being stubborn and self-destructive.

And instead just defaulting to falling back on whatever he might have said or expressed in an entirely different context at an entirely different time.....and saying okay, by doing so, we are abiding by his wishes and thus doing what he wants and respecting his right to make his own choices.....

But ONLY when doing all of the above just so happens to align with these other characters then getting to do the thing or take the approach they’re already predisposed towards wanting to take because of their OWN self-interests at the same time.

With this never actually coming into play when respecting Dick’s wishes aligns with them taking actions they DON’T personally want to undertake, because it makes them uncomfy or they think its a bad call, even if it is something that should be his call to make.

Like....the pattern. It very much exists. And abounds. Like I could cite examples allllllllllll the way up to Ric Grayson, where Bruce respected RIC’S wishes to be left alone and not interfere in his life no matter what.....in ways Bruce almost never respects Dick’s actual expressed wish for Bruce to butt out of matters when Bruce is actually quite keen on meddling and would very much like to....

But notice how the other thing about the Ric Grayson storyline is that Ric’s expressed desire to stay the fuck out of vigilantism and superhero work, like.....just so happens to align with Bruce’s longstanding desire for Dick to like...get out of the vigilantism and superhero work? With butting out of Ric’s life and respecting his privacy in ways Dick has to FIGHT him for, like......absolutely the optimal action to take in order to allow this expressed desire of Ric’s to flourish in the ways Bruce always wished would kick in for Dick?

.....just saying.

The pattern. It abounds.

And the key to breaking any pattern, of course, is to first recognize....and acknowledge....that it exists.

Otherwise you tend to fall into the trap of repeating and perpetuating it over and over without even realizing it, simply because its what’s familiar.

This has been A Post by Me. Thank you and have a nice day. Or don’t. Idk. I’m not the boss of you. Whatever.

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analviel · 3 years

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Thinking about the monthly get together hang outs of the original Young Justice (because they have those), and one they had immediately after the retired members heard that Tim had a particularly bad encounter with a villain and Greta asking them some mild details and Kon gearing to start on a non-stop tangent about the evil Red Hood when Tim leans back behind Greta, glaring at him and shaking his head, and Kon going oh and the four active heroes give a throw away line about how it's no one special, all villains got it out for Robin cause they know he's the most badass (um, no, Superboy is because Super) and Tim leads them around to focusing on their lives sans supervillains and Greta was all wow, Nightwing really took care of you after you got beat up so bad, Tim, you got lucky with the adoptive brother, good for you, and Tim has to laugh nervously while inwardly cackling hysterically because the difference between Tim and Greta's situation is Tim was trained and she wasn't when they had their encounter with murderous adoptive older brothers.

(Also, a nice contrast is that Harm killing his sister as a sacrifice had been as impersonal as it can get, while Red Hood's issue with Tim is on the entirely opposite side of the spectrum.

They were both still just collateral for something that honestly had nothing to do with them.)

#Greta Hayes #Young just us #tim drake #robin #red robin #murderous adoptive older brothers #and i write #jason todd #red hood #billy hayes

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heyitsani · 2 years

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Self Love Retrospective

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 (or so) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought to the world in 2021. Tag as many creators as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

Tagged by @nerd-by-definition

1. So Devoid of Color

This was actually my most popular story of the year. I wrote it for Dick Grayson week under the prompt of “Bruce hits Dick and doesn’t get away with it.” I enjoyed the exploration of the prompt because it came from Tim’s POV, so you didn’t get a lot of Dick mentally making excuses. And it was just a very emotionally raw piece.

The Cave went deathly silent in the aftermath.

For those 30 or so seconds immediately after the distinct sound of a fist hitting a cheekbone, it was like they had landed in a vacuum of sound.

It was such a startling contrast to the shouting that had led up to that exact moment. The fight between Dick and Bruce hadn’t been surprising. When Red Robin had called Nightwing on his private comm line to report that Robin had been shot on patrol, he had known the eldest would panic. And when he found out it was because Batman had made a mistake, Tim knew shit would hit the fan.

Quite literally.

2. I Just Want to Know You Better

This is probably in my top three favorite pieces of all time? It was a gift for two lovely friends for their birthdays and I wanted to branch out in a way I hadn’t before. So I changed up my style and I eliminated heroes and villains (though Gotham still had its issues) and kept parents alive. I got explore the lives of Jason and Dick if Bruce had never happened and if Dick hadn’t lost his parents. It’s my first and only circus fic thus far.

Gotham was a disgusting city.

Dick wouldn’t accept any other opinion because he knew, at the tender age of 10 years old, he was absolutely correct. It didn’t matter that the people of the city had a resilience and strength about them that he had noticed the very first time he remembered Haly’s had pitched their tents within the Gotham city limits. It didn’t matter the rich history of the city and the survival through years of corruption and evil. He didn’t care about those things.

No, he cared that the city seemed to bleed its life force into the ground it sat upon, into the mucky water at its shores. That each year they came, the city seemed grayer and sadder. More desperate. Where other cities sparked colors all around. Metropolis with it’s bright red and yellows, San Francisco with a rainbow of colors seeping into the very skin of each of the people wandering their limits, and even Star City with the dim, but ever-present greens and blues.

Dick hated it.

Until he didn’t.

3. Mr. Perfectly Fine

I think I would get in trouble if I didn’t include this one on the list because though it hasn’t received as much love as others, it was a favorite amongst my friends. It’s such a heartbreaking story of life after a breakup between Dick and Jason, exploring their life paths and how the one influences the other even years later. It’s an Au with actor!Dick and musician!Jason and spans over 20 years throughout the story.

And yes, it’s influenced by the Taylor Swift song.

“How long have you been in LA?”

“Just a few months,” a smooth voice sounded behind him, causing Dick to turn and find himself face to face with the man from the stage. The man with the voice that had literally demanded he come in off the street to see where it was coming from. “A celebrity in our dressing room, who would have thought that would ever happen?” There was a teasing glint in the man’s eyes that made Dick practically swoon.

Holding out a surprisingly steady hand, Dick licked his lips. “Dick Grayson,” he said, hoping his voice didn’t sound as breathless to them as it did in his own ears. The man smiled and took Dick’s hand in his larger one, giving a firm shake but not releasing it right away.

“Jason Todd.”

4. Weigh Down My Soul

Okay this one is kind of hit or miss. Jason being tricked by a Djinn and exploring life as he wishes Dick’s influence out of his. It kind of explores Dick’s manipulative side a bit because it’s a fight between him and Jason that sets the wishes in motion. But we also get to see how things would have been if Dick was removed from Gotham in various levels, what life for everyone would have been like.

Also, Orange Lantern!Dick makes an appearance and it’s *chef kiss*. Shoutout to @shannara810 for the idea.

“Are you fucking insane?!” Jason growled as he pulled off his helmet the moment he and Dick landed on a rooftop far enough away from the crime scene to not catch the attention of the cops, but close enough to be sure they got there in a timely manner. “Why the hell would you just give yourself over to them like that? We had it covered, we were good. Do you always have to be such a fucking masochist?!” He knew he wasn’t technically being fair, that things had been starting to go sideways, but he was still so pissed that Dick hadn’t even warned him. He had just jumped into the middle of the nest of criminals and “let them” get the drop on him.

“Why are you so upset? Everything worked out fine,” Dick pointed out, just making Jason’s temper flare hotter. “I’m more than capable of taking care of myself. And I don’t need you thinking you have any right to fight my battles for me!” He didn’t understand how the older man just didn’t get that people cared enough to not want him to sacrifice himself whenever he possibly could.

It made Jason want to put his fist through the brick wall to his left.

5. I Keep My Eyes Wide Open All the Time

Even though I started this one in 2020, I finished it in 2021 and I couldn’t not have my Past Lives AU mentioned. It’s my baby and through it I grew more and more in love with Damian as a character. In comics and fics. The first story explores a past life of Dick and Jason where a curse is put on them that forces them to live their life and all future lives in close proximity and in love, but never being allowed to be together. This is the sequel where Damian is given the chance to remember the lives that Dick and Jason now remember as well. Lives Damian was fully submerged in as well.

It’s kind of hard to explain without giving away the plot. But if you like time pieces and exploring familial bonds in and out of blood relation, give it a try.

“I have loved him for over a millennium, Dami, but we have never been allowed to be fully happy. Duty, law, or prejudice, along with a curse, has kept us from truly belonging to each other,” Richard explained. And Damian felt his heart clench at the thought of the two of them being close but never fully being able to give into their love. He thought of him and Jon. How he cared so deeply for the other man but feared what Father would think. Feared how he would react should anything happen to Jon because of him. But never had an outside force worked against the two of them. He couldn’t imagine how that would feel. “Now we can finally be together in the eyes of the law and I don’t want to wait anymore.”

“But me? Why not Father?”

Richard smile turned a little sad and Damian watched as he set his cup down before turning to look at Damian fully. “Because you were our son. Because you were of my blood and Jason loved you as though you were of his.” Dropping Richard’s gaze, Damian processed those words. “You were my son with a woman who was not kind or good, in any of her lives. She did some horrible things, but she also gave me you. And that love, that affection, has always been yours. Each and every lifetime, even though you are no longer my blood, you have always been mine.”

I have no idea who to tag that hasn’t already been tagged and/or done this already so I’ll just toss a few: @mlim8 @justtoarguewithyou @epistemologys @allthatsentimentalcandyfloss and anyone else who might want to show themselves some love.

#jaydick #fic recommendation #tag games #anikah writes

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oh-mother-of-darkness · 4 years

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Timeline: Batman

google doc / ao3

This is my best attempt at a post-crisis timeline based on age-- specifically Bruce’s age every time he adopted and/or met one of his children.

List of events:

Bruce’s parents die

Bruce becomes Batman

Dick’s parents die

Dick becomes Robin

Jason becomes Robin and is adopted

Jason dies

Tim becomes Robin

Cass appears

Dick is adopted

Tim is adopted

Cass is adopted

Damian becomes Robin

I’ll be citing my work by issue and panel. This isn’t my most organized work, and I don’t know how well tumblr will let me translate it, so I do recommend the google doc. I imagine the image quality here won’t be great.

Notes:

This is a post-crisis timeline (1986-2011). I’ll be referencing a few pre-crisis panels, but I won’t be touching the New 52 or anything after it. That’s a different game of ball with its own, extremely bad, timeline.

Crisis on Infinite Earths is a 1985-1986 series that rebooted the DC timeline and altered some backstories, including Jason’s. Pre-crisis, his backstory was almost identical to Dick’s. Post-crisis, he changed to the “steal the wheels off the Batmobile” origin. Anything written before 1986 is a weak source for my purposes.

My original question centered around Bruce’s age through the process of meeting and acquiring his children. In this timeline, those children are (1) Dick Grayson, (2) Jason Todd, (3) Cassandra Cain, (4) Tim Drake, and (5) Damian Wayne. I was envisioning an interview where the kids explain their family timeline to outsiders. I did not anticipate the project taking this long.

We’re talking about 72 years of content here, which means decades of contradiction, conflation, and rewrites. I’m pretty satisfied with my work product, but please understand that there are no perfect answers. I’m going to cite my sources, and I’ll do my best to explain why I chose those sources specifically, but it’s pretty likely that for every panel I pull, there will be others with different numbers. We’re all going to have to live with that.

Event timeline

*I’m defining Jason’s age by the time elapsed since his birth, but you could make an argument for using time he has been alive, which is, of course, different. That’s why the parentheses are there.

Age differences

As Robin

----------

Bruce’s parents die

Pretty consistently, Bruce is written as eight years old the night his parents died.

Detective Comics #0 (1994)

This is a zero issue where Bruce thinks back on his origin story. It was written long after Crisis on Infinite Earths (1986), and I tend to give a lot of weight to ages written in summaries of past plot lines, my reasoning being that it’s easier to be consistent in one issue than it is to be consistent through a month to month story.

Bruce first appeared as an adult in Detective Comics #27 (1939), and the Waynes were already dead at that point, so flashbacks are the only available material anyway.

Gotham Knights #6 (2000)

The text is Hugo Strange talking about Bruce, and the image is Tim and Dick playing at Wayne Enterprises.

I’ll take a second here to note that I did find at least one alternate age for Bruce— in Superman/Batman Secret Files & Origins (2003), Bruce was 10 when his parents died. I’m disregarding that in favor of the stronger 8 year old timeline, especially in light of Batman #404 (1987).

Batman #404 is the beginning of Batman: Year One, which was explicitly written to clarify the Batman timeline post-crisis, and it’s the basis of most of my calculations for Bruce and Dick’s ages.

----------

Bruce becomes Batman

According to Year One, Bruce was 26 years old when he became Batman. I’m using his age at his parents’ deaths, his age when he returned to Gotham, and his 18 year timeline.

Batman #404 puts Bruce at age 25 when he returned to Gotham in January.

Batman #404 (1987)

Bruce gives his dramatic, “Yes, Father, I will become a bat,” line in March. In the same scene, he says that it has been 18 years since his parents’ deaths. Knowing that they died when Bruce was eight, that puts Bruce at 26 years old the day he became Batman, which makes sense considering Bruce’s birthday is usually set at February 19th.

He was 25 in January, turned 26 in February, and became Batman at 26, 18 years after his parents’ death.

Batman #404 (1987)

Post-crisis, DC built timelines off the “Year” model. Year One is Batman’s beginning, and events after that are measured by how far away they are from the year Bruce became Batman. I’ll be using the Year model for Dick’s life events next.

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Dick’s parents die

The Graysons died in Year Two. Using the Year Model, Dick was 12 when his parents died, and Bruce was 37.

Year timelines appear a fair amount, especially in issues titled “Secret Files & Origins.” I pulled this bit from Batman Secret Files & Origins (1997) because it was the easiest to screenshot.

Batman Secret Files & Origins (1997)

Year Two would place Bruce at 27 years old. I’m calculating Dick’s age backwards, based on him being 13 years old during Year Three.

Batman Secret Files & Origins (1997)

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Dick becomes Robin

Dick became Robin in Year Three, when he was 13 years old and Bruce was 28. I’m using two different issues to calculate the number.

Batman #441 (1989)

Batman #441 is from Tim’s introduction story. It takes place “months” after Jason’s death. We’ll get to that part. In Batman #441, Tim asked Dick to be Robin again in order to help Bruce, who was visibly unstable after Jason’s death. Dick says that he can’t go back to being Robin, just like he can’t go back to being 13 years old. The strong implication there is that Dick became Robin at 13, which corresponds to Dick’s statements in Batman #416 (1988).

In Batman #416, Dick as Nightwing returns to confront Bruce about Jason becoming Robin. He says that he was Robin for six years, and he stopped being Robin at 19.

Batman #416 (1988)

If Dick stopped being Robin at 19, after 6 years, that would put him at 13 when he debuted as Robin, the same number from Batman #441 (1989).

Dick was 13 during Year Three, so 12 during Year Two, the year his parents died. Those numbers answer the first bit of my original question. I wanted to know how old Dick and Bruce were when Dick became his child. It’s a bit more of a complicated question for Dick, since he was originally Bruce’s ward, then adopted as an adult.

Based on the timeline so far, Dick became Bruce’s ward at 12 years old, while Bruce was 27.

----------

Jason becomes Robin and is adopted

As previously discussed (see Notes), Jason’s timeline is complicated by Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985-1986). Pre-crisis, Jason first appeared in Batman #336 (1983) as a former circus acrobat very similar to Dick.

Jason’s origin story reboots at Batman #408 (1987), which describes the switch-off between Dick and Jason. I’m building a lot of my timeline off of that issue. At the beginning, Dick gets shot by the Joker, and as Bruce carries him away, the media ask if Robin is dead. Dick isn’t dead, but back at the manor, Bruce decides to retire Robin as a role, based on the idea that crimefighting is too dangerous for a child.

Batman #408 (1987)

This version is more or less from Bruce’s point of view, but there’s a contrasting version from Dick’s point of view later, in Batman #416 (1987). That one has a significantly different tone, and I already cited it once (page 13) because Dick talks about his age and the amount of time he was Robin.

Batman #408 (1987)

The second part of the issue takes place “weeks” later. Bruce goes to Crime Alley to mourn his parents on the anniversary of their death. He comes back to find that somebody stole the wheels off the Batmobile. The somebody was Jason, and by the end of Batman #409 (1987), Bruce is calling Jason “Robin.”

Batman #408 (1987) seems to divide Dick’s departure and Jason’s introduction by only “weeks,” in the post-crisis reboot. Dick’s version of the story in Batman #416 (1987) is much less charitable to Bruce— instead of ending on a panel of Bruce smiling, it shows the aftermath of Dick in tears as Bruce walks away. Dick goes on to describe leaving the house, going to college for a semester, then dropping out. According to Dick, Bruce didn’t even say goodbye.

Batman #416 (1987)

I don’t think the stories are contradictory; they’re just different experiences of the same events, separated by only eight issues. Dick tells us that he was 19 when he left Wayne Manor, and Bruce chooses his new Robin “weeks” later.

As a summary, we know that Bruce’s parents died when he was eight, and that 18 years passed before he became Batman at 26. One year later, Dick’s parents died while Bruce was 27. One year after that, Dick became Robin at the age of 13. From those facts, Bruce is 15 years older than Dick.

All of my calculations of Bruce’s age are based off of the age gap between him and Dick. Dick was 19 when Jason became Robin, so we know that at that time, Bruce was 34. We also know that at that time, Jason was 12.

I can’t show a source for that number because it appears on the letter page of Batman #408 (1987), Jason’s introduction.

Even after a significant amount of investigation, I can’t find a copy of the letter page, but it’s cited by enough secondary sources for me to be comfortable using it. That issue is specifically written to show Jason’s origin, so it makes sense that it would contain Jason’s age at inception, even if the number wasn’t in the actual exposition.

From Jason being 12, we can establish a seven-year age gap between Jason and Dick, who was 19 at the time. Now we know Bruce, Dick, and Jason’s ages, and the age differences between them.

Back to my original question— when did Bruce acquire Jason? We know that Bruce was 34 when Jason became his ward, and Jason was 12. The next question, however, is when did Bruce adopt Jason? On this one, I’m making an educated guess.

Again we have to differentiate between pre-crisis and post-crisis timelines. Pre-crisis, there’s a full storyline about the fact that Bruce did not adopt Jason, although not for lack of trying. In Batman #374 (1984), the Child Welfare Bureau investigates Bruce when it notices that Bruce has not adopted Jason— and is not even, in fact, his legal guardian.

Batman #374 (1984)

The rest of the storyline is about Jason’s custody. A villain named Natalia Knight (Nocturna) adopts Jason in an attempt to get Bruce to marry her in order to become Jason’s father. In the court scene in Batman #377 (1984), Bruce says that he filed to adopt Jason sometime beforehand, although it’s unclear to me whether he means he filed between those issues or the CWB documents were incomplete.

Natalia does adopt Jason in Batman #378 (1984), and he briefly lives with her before returning to Wayne Manor in Batman #381 (1985), directly before the reboot.

I’m including all of that for two reasons: first, I do think it’s important to clarify both this version and the post-crisis version I’m about to address. Second, I spent years under the impression that Bruce adopted Jason pre-crisis because of one, well-known scene.

Batman #377 (1984)

Batman #378 (1984)

Batman #381 (1985)

Donna Troy gets married in Tales of the Teen Titans #50 (1985). At the wedding, Bruce and Dick have a conversation about Jason and about their own relationship. A few of those panels get spread around because they contain what I would consider a defining moment between Dick and Bruce.

I’m certainly not complaining about the amount of times I’ve seen the wedding conversation, but I think that, in regards to Jason, seeing just those panels has created a misconception.

Tales of the Teen Titans #50 (1985)

Without context, it looks, at least to me, like Dick is saying that Bruce has adopted Jason pre-crisis, which isn’t true. This issue takes place between the Natalia adoption in Batman #378 (1984) and Jason’s return to the manor in Batman #381 (1985), and the panels directly before the exchange make that clear. I just didn’t see those panels until I looked through the whole issue for this project.

I’m reasonably certain that in the past, I publicly cited this issue as evidence of Jason’s adoption, and I was wrong about that. [Note: As it turns out, I was only partially wrong. See section Correction.]

Tales of the Teen Titans #50 (1985)

As we see, the wedding conversation is in the context of the Natalia adoption. With that cleared up, and with the pre-crisis timeline filled out, let’s move to post-crisis.

In my brief read-through of Batman #404-427 (1987-1988), I didn’t find any direct references to Jason’s status. Those issues begin at the reboot and end at Jason’s death. However, Dick and Jason’s statements after the fact do tell us that post-crisis, Bruce did adopt Jason.

In Batman #436 (1989), Dick returns to the manor in the direct aftermath of Jason’s death, and while he is there, he sees that Bruce removed any trace of Jason from the house. There aren’t any trophies in the Batcave, and there aren’t any pictures of Jason on the nightstand displaying Bruce’s family photos.

Dick says that Jason was Bruce’s son.

Batman #436 (1989)

I think it’s fair to ask whether Dick is being literal here, because even if Bruce hadn’t legally adopted Jason, it would still be more than appropriate to call them father and son. I’m not going to place my opinion solely on this kind of statement, even if it does appear pretty regularly from 1988 to the end of the timeline.

Green Arrow/Black Canary #4 (2007)

We get a more definite answer later, during Tim’s first appearance. In Tim’s origin story, he deduces Batman and Robin’s secret identities after he sees footage of Robin doing a type of flip that only the Flying Graysons could do. Tim was at the circus the night Dick’s parents died, so he saw Dick do the flip there, then saw Dick become an orphan.

Because Tim knew that Dick was the first Robin, he correctly identified Bruce as Batman and Jason as the second Robin. He tells Dick all of this in Batman #441 (1989).

Batman #441 (1989)

Tim does specifically use the word “adopts” here, and that’s good enough for me. The last part is guesswork— I don’t know for certain how old Jason and Bruce were when the adoption took place, but I’m electing to say Jason was 12, the same age as he was when he became Robin.

I picked that number both out of convenience and because Tim seems to be putting Jason’s adoption and the second Robin’s appearance at around the same time. With that in mind, I think that Jason was 12 years old both when he became Robin and when Bruce adopted him. Using the age gap we already established, that would put Bruce at age 34.

Circling back to my original question, Dick became Bruce’s ward when Dick was 12 and Bruce was 27. Jason became Bruce’s ward, then adoptive son when Jason was 12 and Bruce was 34.

At this point in the timeline, Bruce is 34 with one former ward and one adopted son.

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Correction

A few days after I wrote my section about Jason’s appearance and adoption, I realized that I was missing a panel citation in my discussion of Jason’s death. The panel is from New Titan #55 (1989), and you’ll see me cite it when I talk about Jason’s death certificate.

New Titans #55 (1989) is the issue where Dick, who is with the Teen Titans, finds out about Jason’s death. While I was combing through the issue for the panels I wanted, I reread a scene I had completely forgotten about. Dick goes back to the manor to speak to Bruce, and it doesn’t go well.

New Titans #55 (1989)

I have three comments here. First, I do think this scene is inconsistent with the simultaneous story in the Batman title. In this version, Dick and Bruce have a very aggressive confrontation, but in Batman #436 (1989), Dick appears to be returning to the manor for the first time since Jason died, and there isn’t any reference to a prior fight.

Putting that aside, Bruce does explicitly say that he adopted Jason, and that’s more, stronger verification of a post-crisis adoption. Lastly, it’s pretty clear that Bruce and Dick are talking about the wedding scene.

I already explained that the wedding scene is pre-crisis, and in the original text, that conversation is about Bruce wanting to, but not being able to, adopt Jason. New Titans #55 (1989) carries the wedding scene into post-crisis canon, changing the language in the process. In this version, Bruce has adopted Jason.

I was still wrong about the wedding scene because in the past, I used it as evidence of a pre-crisis adoption. It isn’t pre-crisis evidence, but it is, in a roundabout way, evidence of the post-crisis adoption. I wanted to clear that up before I move on to Jason’s death.

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Jason dies

Jason’s death is by far the shakiest point on my timeline, but I’ve chosen to put him at 15 the day he died in Batman #427 (1988).

I think it’s safe to say that Jason was either 14 or 15 when he died, and my basic conclusion is that running numbers doesn’t give me a definite answer. There’s a cop-out option based on an extraordinarily poor source, and I’m taking the cop-out.

The general consensus seems to be that Jason was 15 at his death, citation to Jason’s death certificate. Jason’s death certificate appears in two different places, and I think most folks conflate the two.

To my knowledge, the only copy of Jason’s death certificate in full appears in The Batman Files (2011), where it does list Jason’s age as 15.

The Batman Files (2011)

Now there is a partial copy in Batman Annual #25 (2006), which I would argue is a very reliable reference when it comes to Jason. That issue is part of the Under the Red Hood story, the one where Jason returns to Gotham for the first time after his resurrection. In fact, the specific annual issue has a timeline for Jason’s events counting forward from his death.

Here’s the problem: the issue doesn’t say his age at death. The partial copy of his death certificate looks like this.

Batman Annual #25 (2006)

I think that when most folks remember a death certificate, they think of this one, the one from a very important issue, instead of The Batman Files (2011) which, as noted, is a very bad source.

I have three issues with The Batman Files (2011): the format, the publishing date, and the other information on the certificate. First, The Batman Files (2011) isn’t a comic book at all. It’s a commemorative book published in collaboration with DC in 2011. Now I don’t think that fact completely removes the book as a source, but it certainly damages its value as one.

My problem with that date, 2011, is that it’s the year the New 52 premiered. I called it a commemorative book because it’s meant to be a look back at a fully complete timeline, a kind of “this is us saying goodbye” product. The date and format alone make me hesitant to cite the certificate, but on top of that, the certificate is inconsistent with prior canon.

I am intimately familiar with retcons and conflicting numbers in the DC timeline. I made a point at the beginning of this paper to tell you that although this is my best attempt to make a cohesive timeline, assuming that I can carve out a cohesive timeline is fundamentally flawed.

I’m not saying that a single contradictory number is enough to make me disregard a source. I am saying that in this particular conversation about an already suspect source, I’m going to take inconsistency into account.

In New Titans #55 (1989), the issue from Corrections, Dick finds out about Jason’s death because a team member notices Jason’s status is set at “unknown.” Dick uses Bruce’s passcode to access restricted information, and he and the Titans see that Jason’s real status is “deceased.”

The death certificate in The Batman Files (2011) marks Jason’s height at 4’6 and his age at 15. In contrast, Dick’s scene puts Jason at 5’4, and its only reference to Jason’s age is a very relatable question from Donna. “How old was he, anyway?”

New Titans #55 (1989)

There’s a substantial difference between the two heights, and I think it’s also worth noting that for a 15 year old American male, 4’6 is in the 0.1 height percentile. In the past, I and many others have tried to justify that height along the lines of Jason being malnourished or similarly afflicted. Personally, I liked the parallel between this height for Jason and Damian’s height at his own death in 2013, and I know I’ve talked about that in the past.

I’m not criticizing anyone for using the 4’6 number, but I do think the unlikelihood of a 15 year old that size is worth bringing up.

In summary, The Batman Files (2011) is so bad of a source that I’m only willing to use it as a last resort. Unfortunately, it’s time for a last resort.

I mentioned a timeline in Batman Annual #25 (2006) that counts forward from Jason’s death. I’m not going to use image cites here because they’re just isolated text boxes labeled either “six months later” or “one year later.”

Using that timeline, we know that Jason’s resurrection took place six months after his death. He spent one year in a coma, then one year on the street, then one year with the League of Assassins. Finally, he spent a nebulous time training before he returned to Gotham.

We know that Jason was gone for a minimum of three and a half years, then whatever time “training” includes. Personally, I’m applying my best attempt at comic logic to say he was missing for somewhere between three and four years.

To understand the next bit, I need to point out that from Jason’s death on, I’m going to be using Tim’s age to track time in the same way I’ve been using Dick’s so far.

As a reminder, I know what age Bruce was when Dick became Robin (28), and I know Dick’s age at the same point (13), so I know there’s a 15 year age difference. As I track Dick’s age through the timeline, I add 15 to get Bruce’s.

In the same way, I know what age Dick was when Jason became Robin (19), and I know Jason’s age at the same point (12), so I know there’s a 7 year age difference. I can use that number ongoing.

I know that Tim was 13 when he made his first appearance as Robin, and I’ll get into that in the next section. After that, I’m placing Dick, Tim, and Cass’s adoptions based on Tim’s age.

To do that, I need to know how much older Dick is than Tim, and I can only get that by knowing Jason’s age at his death, sort of.

How long was Jason Robin? If I had that information, I could establish Jason’s age by counting up from 12, the age when he became Robin, then establish Tim’s age from there.

I can’t really answer that question. There is a panel from Batman #436 where Dick, apparently in his first time at the manor since Jason’s death says the following.

Batman #436 (1989)

My instinctual interpretation is it’s been two years since he stopped being Robin at 19, making Dick 21 and Jason 14. In my opinion, that’s straightforward plain language, but it seems like I’m in the minority on that one, and most folks read it as Dick saying it’s been two years since he was last at the manor. We know from Batman #416 (1988) that Dick’s last visit to the manor was 18 months after Dick left home.

Batman #136 (1988)

I think the most honest thing to say is that Jason was Robin for an indeterminate amount of time that was somewhere between two and three years. I don’t know which number is closer. I also, if you remember, think that Jason was gone from Gotham for somewhere between three and four years, but I don’t know where in that range the real number is.

Here’s why absolutely nothing I’ve said in the past seven pages matters: I need to build my timeline based on the age gap between Jason and Tim.

I don’t know how old Tim was when Jason died.

I know how old Tim was at his first appearance as Robin, and that’s a different number.

We’ll finish this conversation in a moment.

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Tim becomes Robin

We begin, thankfully, with a straightforward fact. Tim’s first storyline spans Batman #440-442 (1989). The arc is called A Lonely Place of Dying, and we already talked about it. Tim, having watched Batman and Robin from the shadows for years, comes forwards in the aftermath of Jason’s death in an attempt to convince Dick to become Robin for a second time.

Batman #441 (1989)

We know that Tim was 13 years old at the time, but I do need to clarify exactly what time that was— an indeterminate amount of time after Jason’s death.

The word that pops up a couple of time in Tim’s first arc is “months,” from Tim and Two-Face. How many months? Who’s to say.

Batman #442 (1989)

So, from the top. We know that Bruce was eight when his parents died, 26 when he became Batman, 27 when he met Dick, 28 when Dick became Robin, and 34 when he met Jason.

Dick was 12 when he met Bruce, 13 when he became Robin, 19 when he left home and Jason became Robin.

Jason was 12 when he became Robin.

Bruce is 15 years older than Dick. Bruce is 22 years older than Jason.

Dick is 7 years older than Jason.

How long was Jason Robin? Unknown, but somewhere between two and three years. At that point, he died. “Months” after that, Tim was 13.

Here, we need to acknowledge that Jason could have been either 14 or 15 at his death, and at the same time, Tim was either 12 or 13. We need to know how far they are apart to calculate Tim’s age in relation to Jason, Dick, and Bruce— ongoing, we will always know exactly how old Tim is, so (if we know how far apart Jason and Tim are) we will always know Bruce, Dick, and Jason’s age from there.

How much older than Tim is Jason? Somewhere between one and three years, I guess, but I can’t really go beyond a well-researched guess. In my opinion, there isn’t a straightforward answer for this one.

Having presented my facts, here is my conclusion. Jason was 15 when he died. At the same time, Tim was 13. They are two years apart.

Why? To begin, I’m more comfortable using the number we already have for Tim, 13, than I am dropping him to 12 on the mere possibility that he could have been 12.

Second, even though The Batman Files (2011) is a terrible source, it does at least sort of indicate that the official DC position is a Jason who was 15 years old at his death.

Third, visually speaking, Jason looks closer to 15 than 14 at his death. Is that good evidence? No, absolutely not. Comic book art is definitionally variable, but I am going to pull a few panels for you to look over.

Batman #427 (1988)

Finally, I feel that Jason and Tim are, in later works, treated as if they are different ages. I’m not going to go into much detail on that one because it is purely a personal reaction, but I would refer to Teen Titans #29 (2005) as an example. That issue has Jason and Tim’s first meeting, after Jason comes to the tower specifically to attack Tim.

Teen Titans #27 (2005)

Another well-known issue to check out is Teen Titans #47 (2007).

My basic position is that there are so many ways, all uncertain, to slice Jason and Tim’s ages that I can take my pick. I chose the ones that most closely mirror later canon, fall most squarely into the possible range, and feel the most intuitively right.

They also have the benefit of simplicity, which was very much a factor.

Don’t agree with me? Fair enough. I think I’ve given you enough information to make an educated judgment, and I’ve also gone ahead and made a timeline in the alternative. In this one, Jason was 14 at death, and he and Tim are only one year apart.

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In the Alternative

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Cass appears

Having progressed beyond Jason and Tim’s age gap, we reenter simple canon. I hope you’re as pleased as I am.

Cass was 17 years old at her first appearance, which we can establish easily based on two different issues. Cass first appears in Batman #567 (1999), during an arc called No Man’s Land. At the time, she is working for Barbara Gordon in the aftermath of an earthquake that destroyed most of Gotham. We learn Cass’s backstory through that issue.

Cass’s biological father is David Cain, a villain, who raised Cass in isolation, never exposing her to a verbal language or allowing any kind of socialization. By comic book logic, her upbringing gave her a near-superhuman ability to understand and anticipate physical actions, as those actions are her only form of communication.

Cain trained her as a child assassin, then took her to her first kill. Cass murdered a man and experienced, through his body language, the pain he felt at his death. Immediately afterward, she ran away from her father.

Batgirl #62 (2005)

We know that Cass was eight years old when she killed and ran. We also know that her first appearance in Gotham was nine years after she ran, thanks to Barbara Gordon’s file.

Batgirl #1 (2000)

Simple enough. She was 17. How old was everybody else? We find out from Tim’s timeline.

This next bit will come up a few times. We know that Tim was 15 from at least 1993 to 2003, established by three different issues. We know from Detective Comics #668 (1993) that Tim was 15 during Knightquest, the arc where Jean-Paul Valley was briefly Batman. Barbara tells us in 2002 that Tim is still 15, and Tim turns 16 on-panel in 2003.

In Knightquest, Tim gets his driver’s license early, at age 15, because Jack Drake is in a wheelchair. I suppose the wording here is ambiguous on a technicality, but I don’t think there’s any significant argument against Tim being 15; if he was only 14, the language would be different.

Detective Comics #668 (1993)

Next, in Batgirl #24 (2002), Barbara says she’s “sending a 15 year old” as she reaches for Tim’s com line.

Batgirl #24 (2002)

We could stop here for Cassandra’s appearance, since that happened in 1999, between the 1993 issue and the 2002 reference. For completion’s sake, however, let’s note that Robin #116 (2003) is about Tim’s 16th birthday. He forgets about it, so his step-mother throws a surprise party.

Robin #116 (2003)

Okay, so Tim was 15 when Cass appeared at age 17. That puts Bruce at 39, Dick at 24, and Jason at 17 if you’re counting by years elapsed since his birth.

Bruce met his daughter when he was 39 and she was 17, in reference to my original question. Cass is 22 years younger than Bruce, seven years younger than Dick, the same age as Jason, and two years older than Tim.

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Dick is adopted

This one, having already established Tim’s timeline, is very simple. Dick was adopted in Gotham Knights #17 (2001).

Gotham Knights #17 (2001)

Again, Tim was 15 from 1993 to 2003, and 2001 falls within that range. Tim was 15, which makes Dick 24 and Bruce 39.

At this point in the timeline, Bruce, a 39 year old, has two adopted children, one of whom is deceased as far as Bruce is concerned. His adopted children are (17) and 24. He has already met two of his future children, Cass and Tim.

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This is PART ONE. I’ll reblog Part Two onto this post when I wake up, which should be around the same time this posts.

#PART ONE of two #I'm going to reblog the last 10 pages onto this post as soon as it comes off the queue #timeline #mine #really lame that I can fit 50 pages into a post but then the last10 is too much

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themaribatpit · 3 years

Text

Jasonette July Day 14: Loss

Written by: The Maribat Pit @jasonette-july-event Prompt: Loss Rated: T (Presumed Major Character Death) Based on the trailer for the upcoming Gotham Knights game: https://youtu.be/IhVf_3TeTQE (TW: flashing images towards the end of the trailer)

Jason is walking home on a rainy night in Gotham after a long day working with Roy. He was hoping to quickly get back home to his girlfriend and relax for a few days. He felt his phone vibrate, he took it out from his pocket to see it was a call from Batman. The words “Incoming Transmission: Code Black” were written boldly across his screen. Jason had a bad feeling about this. He walked into a nearby alley and looked around to see if he was truly alone before taking this urgent call.

He was unsure whether to pick up the call or not, his relationship with Bruce had been strained ever since he was killed by the Joker and came back as the Red Hood. Even if they had reconciled, they still argued and disagreed with one another. This was probably him asking if he was willing to go undercover again like he had done with Black Mask. He continued to stare at the phone, thinking of all the possible reasons that Bruce may have wanted to call him. “What is Code Black?” He thought to himself as he answered the call.

His phone sparks to life with the image of Bruce, Jason immediately knew something was wrong. Bruce never showed his face in any Bat related communication. “If you’re watching this, I’m dead.” Jason could not believe what he was seeing, he barely registers the rest of the message. Thinking back to how he first met Batman, trying to steal the wheels off the Batmobile. To him, Batman was invincible, invisible and unstoppable. After all his training as Robin and even after his return as Red Hood, a small piece of him had felt that Batman could not be beaten. He had watched Batman face aliens from outer space and gods from another world. Knowing that Batman was well and truly gone felt...impossible.

He slowly trudges home, his vision blurs as he slowly makes it home on autopilot. He enters his apartment, not even taking his wet clothes or shoes off. Marinette hears him walk in, “Welcome home Jay, I made boeuf bourguignon.” Jason doesn’t even notice her, and in that moment she knew something wasn’t quite right. Normally Jason would joke about how it was a miracle nothing was burning, it could happen, given how clumsy Marinette was. He slowly drags his feet to the living room and slumps on the sofa, his head in his hands. Marinette peeks her head around the corner, looking visibly concerned.

Marinette slowly walked to the sofa and sat next to Jason, putting a hand on his thigh. “Jay?” she quietly asked.

Jason’s voice begins to crack “He’s gone, I can’t believe it, he's really gone.” He lifts his head up to look Marinette dead in the eye, “Mari, Bruce is gone.”

Marinette gasps, she had heard the news report but she didn’t think it was true. She had assumed it was the start of an elaborate ruse, but the look in Jason’s eyes told her otherwise. Marinette knew Jason and Bruce’s relationship was complicated, but he was visibly hurt and shocked by the news. Jason wanted a lot of things, he never really wanted Bruce to die, not like this anyway. If that were the case he would have gone through with his plan of blowing up the Batmobile, all those years ago. Marinette reached up to gently wipe a tear from his face, he held her hand close to his face before she could pull it away. It was the first of many that would be shed at that moment.

For so many years, before and after he died, Jason wanted Bruce to understand him. He seemed like a pointy-eared brick wall at times, he never thought there would come a day when it would fall. Batman had almost seemed untouchable, even when Bane broke his back, he came back stronger than any of them. Marinette gave a startled little squeak as he pulled her close to him, before wrapping her arms around him. He pulled away slightly but her face was still very close to his, he ran his thumb along her cheek as she leaned into his touch. He savoured the warm softness beneath his fingertips. His teary eyes looked into hers for a moment, before he leaned in close to kiss her. At that moment, he needed to feel the warmth that radiated off of her. He needed to hold her close to him, he needed to know that she was really there, and not just a cruel fleeting dream.

Marinette was surprised, in the years that she had known him this wasn't a side of Jason that she had seen before. There was a feeling of desperation in that kiss, one that only Marinette was privy to. Whenever Jason kissed her in the past, sometimes it was passion, sometimes with a gentle softness, and other times because he took a certain delight in making her blush. This time there was passion, but almost never with the desperation and anguish he felt at that very moment. By contrast, Marinette was a lot more trusting, more forgiving, more optimistic. It was something that Jason didn’t take lightly, especially considering the person he was by comparison. With the Kwamis' help, she had seen him through his bouts of pit madness. Nevertheless, when the kiss broke, she was breathless for a moment, but she didn't pull away. She rested her forehead against his, brushing aside the occasional tear from his eyes.

For the rest of the night Jason continued to hold Marinette close to him, his chest heaved with sobs every so often. Even with his complicated relationship with Bruce, he was still the one who adopted, taught and cared for this street urchin of Gotham. As the two held each other, Jason’s phone began to ring, displaying Nightwing’s blue bird symbol on screen. Jason took out the phone and looked to see who was calling. He stared at the screen, unsure how to talk to Dick after the loss of Bruce. He looks back to Marinette, ”answer it” she told him with a gentle smile, he needs to be with his family now.

Jason took a deep breath and answered “Hello?”

He could hear Dick’s voice, unusually hoarse on the other end “Hey Little Wing, you saw the message didn’t you?”

Jason solemnly responded “Yeah. I got his message.”

“We need you Jason, just as Bruce said, Gotham needs its guardians. We’re all here at the Belfry. Babs, Tim, Steph, even Duke and Cass. Are you with us?” asked Dick.

Jason looks back to Marinette, who then nodded to him with a smile and mouthed “Go.”

He turns back to the phone, “I’ll be there in an hour, Ladybug can handle things here”.

As he ends the call and stands up from the sofa, Marinette puts a hand to his chest and lifts a finger, signaling to wait just a moment before running to the bedroom. She returns with two wrapped presents, “They were meant for your birthday next month, but...I think you need it now more than ever.”

She places the two boxes next to Jason, and asks him to open them up. Jason picks up the first box, slowly unwrapping to reveal new body armour. His eyes widen, he runs a hand across the large red bat symbol on its chest.

“Mr. Fox and I worked on this for you, he may be an excellent inventor but he lacks a tailor’s touch.” she explained. Taking out a cue card from the gift box, Marinette clears her throat and begins reading from it. “The tri-weave bodysuit consists of an outer and inner layer made from a titanium-dipped tri-weave fiber mesh.” Marinette tried to read the words with some confidence, despite the fact that English was her second language. She wasn’t even sure if English speakers understood what these words meant. “Sandwiched in between is the MR-fluid based liquid armor system. The proprietary WayneTech Smart MR-fluid hardens in response to impacts, specifically designed to provide superior shock absorption.” As she read the cue card, Marinette thought working these materials into the design was challenging enough, never mind having to list out what they were for. Still, not everyone had her magical super suit, so she never really thought about how a normal human would have to shield themselves. Judging by the smile growing on Jason’s face, clearly she was reading some things right. “The liquid body armor layer is also more flexible than the ceramic or fiber-based armour, allowing for greater maneuverability.” Marinette took a breath and gently placed the cue card back into the box, “I hope you understood those words, because I didn’t” she joked, and for the first time since he’d come home she saw Jason smile. “I also modelled it after your favourite hoodie for maximum comfort.” Saying the last two with emphasis as if it was the most important thing when it came to armour.

Jason chuckles, “This is perfect Pixie, thank you.” As he stands up to give her a hug, she stops him and gestures to the other gift. As he opens the second box he sees within a new Red Hood helmet. “Same materials as your suit. Light, breathable and comfortable.”

Jason picks up the new helmet and begins inspecting it from all angles. He is curious about the black embellishments around the vision slits of the helmet. “Hey Pixie, what's with the dark eye rings?” he asks, turning his head to face her.

She gives him a wink “Red Hood with a pinch of Ladybug.”

Jason places the helmet down and goes to the bedroom to change into his new armour. Tikki zooms over and both of them give each other a firm nod. If Jason was putting his trust in Marinette to hold the fort here, there was no way she was going to let him down.

#jasonettejuly2021 #jasonette #maribat #ml x dc

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that-milo-kid · 2 years

Text

Day 9: “I needed you”

Warnings: Lots of swearing, also references to what Bruce did while ‘convincing’ Dick to join Spyral

Fandom: DCU (Batfam)

Word Count: 1023

Characters: Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne

Notes: i absolutely despise the fact that Bruce just beat the shit out of his kid and then Dick got all the blame for spyral, so here is my frustration in story form <3

The Gotham skyline was a comforting sight, which is something Dick never thought he’d say.

He stood on top of some office building – he could recall the name if he cared enough to, but his mind was elsewhere. He could feel the cold wind that swept through the city, a stark contrast to Blüdhaven’s typically warmer weather. He supposed that was enough to draw contrast between the two cities. Blüdhaven was fiery temperatures and high humidity, while Gotham was icy winds and cold that felt like it seeped into your skin and your bones until there was no warmth left.

After a childhood spent in the cold, the warmth of Blüdhaven was something he’d come to appreciate. He liked to pretend he could ever truly warm again (he knew fully well that the cold was nestled too deep in his heart for that). It never stopped him from going back to Gotham, however.

The night’s visit was not one of leisure, much like it was not a voluntary one. Batman had asked for Nightwing’s presence for a debrief after his mission in Spyral.

It wasn’t Bruce needing Dick. It never was, not really. It was Batman needing a fellow vigilante. Nothing about their relationship was personal, and it probably never really would again. Not after what Bruce had done. He understood what would happen if he sent Dick to Spyral, and he did it anyway.

Dick remembered a mission he had been on with Bruce when he was still Robin, still young and optimistic and warm. They had been going after a well-known drug dealer in Gotham’s criminal circles, an older man. His son was involved in is business, and when Batman and Robin had caught them, the boy begged for forgiveness. He didn’t want to do it, he said – he was forced into it. He had no choice.

Robin barely even considered asking Batman if they could help him. He knew the answer was no.

Bruce had said later that night that children always had a choice. They could end up like their parents, or they could fight to carve their own path. He said that the boy hadn’t fought to carve his own path, and his weakness was his own downfall. Dick sometimes wondered if he’d end up like Bruce, if he’d fought hard enough to carve his own path.

Seeing as how he was 22 and had already died, he reckoned that he was definitely doing worse.

Was that his fault that he was following in Bruce’s footsteps as an emotionally crippled, mentally unstable maniac? Was it down to his inability to carve his own path, or Bruce’s downfalls in raising him? Because giving a revenge crazed nine year old a superhero costume and sending him out to fight bad guys is definitely not how you raise a healthy, stable child.

He wondered how different he really was to the boy, sometimes. Their fathers (father figures, Dick mentally corrected himself. He was never adopted) had handed them a piece of their fucked up business, and the sons had met their downfalls with them.

A small noise next to him and the small shift in the roof beneath his feet told Dick that Bruce was here. That Batman was here. The two of then stood, shoulder to shoulder, in silence for a few seconds. Dick felt wildly uncomfortable.

The cold was everywhere in Gotham.

“Nightwing,” Batman’s gruff voice had started. “I’m glad you agreed to meet. We need to discuss– ”

“I needed you.”

The silence turned from cold to shocked in a split second. Dick couldn’t find it in himself to hold back anymore.

“I fucking – I had just been killed. Murdered by Lex Luthor, and the first godforsaken thing you do is, is– ” He has to stop himself from smacking the shit out of Batman, who’s stun was visible through his cowl. “The first fucking thing you do is beat the shit out of me, before sending me to be a spy for your stupid little fucking mission. And of top of all that, you let Jason and Tim and Damian and Steph and – all of them, my fucking family Bruce, you let them think I was…”

He let his hands fall from where he’d been gesturing wildly. His arms hung uselessly at his sides, all the fight gone from him. It had been Bruce’s fault.

Bruce still stood there at his side, looking at him with wide eyes through the cowl. It was the most outwardly expressive Bruce had been in years, and Dick had to fight an inappropriate laugh at the thought. Dick continued to look at the skyline, refusing to meet Bruce’s eyes.

“You’re clearly upset Nightwing, so I believe I’ll take my leave. Let me know when you’re ready to give your full report.”

And at that Dick actually did laugh, a short, bitter sound that ended before it really started. Bruce had schooled his expression into something carefully neutral again, his mouth set in a line slightly too hard to be truly uncaring. He stayed, and Dick couldn’t really figure out why – he seemed to be waiting for Dick’s response.

“Well go on then. It’s what you’re best at anyway, isn’t it?”

Bruce raised his hand and hesitated, seemingly debating something. He moved it to rest on Dick’s arm and opened his mouth to say something.

“Son…”

Dick flinched hard enough to shake his hand off. He took a staggering step backwards, away from Bruce and from Gotham and from the terrible, unending cold.

“Don’t,” He was surprised by how hard his own voice was. “You made it abundantly clear before I left that I am not your son. I’ll have the report to you by the end of the week.”

He knew it was a childish move, but he left the roof before Batman could. Moving through the buildings and the cold, he knew that Gotham was no longer his city.

He had needed Bruce. And the man hadn’t been there, so Dick had moved on to survive without him. He wasn’t Bruce’s son.

But that didn’t mean that he wasn’t damaged.

#agony april #agony april 2022 #agony april day 9 #tw swearing #tw mentions of child abuse #bc bruce is a shitty parent #bruce wayne #dick grayson #BatFam #but not really bc they hate eachother <3 #the batfamily #milo writes

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fancyfade · 3 years

Text

Okay, a lonely place of dying thoughts. This will be long

So, I just finished re-reading a lonely place of dying. before I get to far into it: This is specifically to analyze the way the character and information is presented to the reader. It’s not to say “so and so is a bad character” or “this is a bad plotline”.

Starting off: they were definitely playing it super safe for the comic reader when they introduced Tim. It feels as if he is introduced literally as an audience avatar. For a large portion of the time before we meet him, we literally are seeing through his eyes -- the panel is positioned so that we would be at his head height, looking at whatever he’s looking at. we never see him except for his hands (so the audience can presumably imagine themselves in his shoes).

this isn’t the way they usually frame unknown characters or characters whose identity is obscured to create an air of mystery -- and there’s an excellent comparison in this same plotline, because there is a character with their identity obscured, who was framed a different way

[image: first two panels are of two face, who is wearing a trench coat and a fedora that casts a shadodw and obscures his face so we cannot tell who he is. His face is completely in shadow. he is talking to someone behind him. he says "Tomorrow. The zwei brothers warehouse. Two am. Now go back to your wife. the fat lady's about to sing." in the next panel, we see him from behind. the back of his head is entirely in shadow to avoid giving us any hints as to who he is. the man he's talking to, Gerry sky, says "whatever it is -- later." two face says "now. 'payroll activation'" and gerry says "okay, okay -- now."

next there's a panel with the dialogue whited out. We still see two face, wearing gloves and having nearly all of his skin (except for his face, which is always in shadow) covered. First we look at him from above and he is small against a dark room with a bookshelf in the background. Then there's a closeup of only his gloved hand as he turns off the radio. We see him from behind (thighs up) as he stands in front of a window, then another shot of his gloved hand trying to touch the radio. and both his hands clench in fists. He hits the radio, breaking it (his body is still off screen except for his arm and hand) and then at his feet we see the broken radio. end image]

end image/begin commentary - Framing of two face on panel

Notice: The presumed “camera angle” is dynamic around Two face. We see him from multiple angles -- from both in front and behind. When we are looking at the same thing he's looking at, we are positioned behind him, like we're looking over his shoulder. the close ups on his hand are not positioned as if he's looking at his own hand and we are in his head pay special attention to the panel he's adjusting the radio on and the fourth panel of the page -- we're looking from the side of him or from behind him and under his elbow there.

Two face is our mysterious bad guy. This is how they visually frame a character they want an air of mystery around.

compare that to the framing around tim

[image: first, we are looking through a camera that is continuously taking pictures of Batman as he stumbles down a slide, walks shakily to his batmobile, and takes off. then the camera is lowered (we see the hand that is lowering the camera in the view, it is below us as if we were looking through this person's eyes) and put inside a duffle bag. after that, we see something in the conrer of the screen -- an arm wearing a jacket?) and puddles of blood, then a bike tire -- but not the rest of the bike, which is off panel -- cutting through the puddles of blood. next pages shows a bunch of internal monologue that has been blockedo ut. a series of batman and robin pictures from the newspapers and a picture of batman swinging on a line in a scrap book. (in the first panel, batman and robin looking victorious in pictures, the second panel some headlines: “batman attacks mom” and “batman on the rampage” and “batman collars dope ring”. the third a picture of reporters interviewing gordon captioned with “batman batters bandits”. we can see the hand grabbing this picture as if we were holding it.

then we appear to be behind whoever is on the page, looking at his elbow, as he opens up a drawer, then we're back "inside" his head again as he holds up a photo with the graysons (john, dick, mary) and the drakes (tim and his parents). 3 year old tim is sitting on 12 year old dick's leg. end image]

end image/begin commentary - Framing of Tim in Panel

okay sorry forgive me but this is fucking fascinating in my opinion. Notice that for two face, most of the close ups on his hands were specifically away from his point of view -- we weren’t positioned where his eyes were, but looking from the outside in.

For tim, we’re almost always looking through his eyes, contrasting to two face

and for tim, even when we were not looking through his eyes, in the very first page, he wasn’t even on panel -- we knew nothing about him, we just saw the edge of his bike. the second page we saw a bit of his arm but we never zoom out far enough to see his whole body and definitely not his face -- even if it would be obscured by shadow.

The first read through, I assumed they were going for an air of mystery, but the contrast between how they handle two face and tim to me makes it clear that they weren’t -- it might have been an unintended side effect, or a bonus effect, but it wasn’t the main purpose. The audience is literally viewing most of the panels Tim is in through Tim’s eyes. He is almost literally an audience avatar.

My general hypothesis here (which I think I am supplying proof of) is that Tim is intended to be an avatar in universe for the “average comic reader" (with some assumptions made by the writer about the average comic reader re: race, age, gender, socioeconomic class)

For more support of this, let’s see how Tim talks about batman and robin --

[image: 3 comic panels from batman 440 featuring newspaper clippings (in the first panel, batman and robin looking victorious in pictures, the second panel some headlines: “batman attacks mom” and “batman on the rampage” and “batman collars dope ring”. the third a picture of reporters interviewing gordon captioned with “batman batters bandits”. there is internal monologue from (the framing of the scene implies tim drake, but at this point he is unknown to the audience) reading “He seemed happier with dick. Now, I guess it’s like he just doesn’t care. But I want him to care again. I want him to be the batman I remember.” then, we have panels from the new titans 61 dick, as nightwing, is reaching in to talk to tim. he grabs tim's arm. dick says, “I don't believe this. that man raised me. I've gone through hell with him and because of him. Don't lecture me about him until you've cared for him and loved him as long as I have”. dick puts his helmet on and drives off on his bike. before leaving, he says "when jason died, he took robin with him." Tim cries and calls after him: "I... I was only thinking of the team... of what Batman and Robin meant! You can't let a legend die like that, Dick..." end image]

end image/begin comment - Tim’s perception of Batman & Robin

Notice in the first panels (with the newspaper clippings) that Tim is reminiscent, he specifically talks about ‘teh batman and robin’ that he remembers. The narrative puts more significance for tim on the fact that batman is not happy and he is not the batman tim remembers, rather than the fact that batman is beating people nearly to death (tim notices this, and it seems to be a “because batman is so clearly sad” thing -- which this is not I believe intended to be a commentary on tim’s priorities, since the general narrative seems to be using bruce’s ultra-violence as a sign he’s angsty).

Then, compare dick’s reaction to bruce with Tim’s.

Dick’s connection to Bruce is extremely personal. Bruce, Batman, whatever, is his dad and raised him and, like he said, put him through hell sometimes. His connection to Jason’s death is similarly personal.

Tim’s connection to Batman and Robin is extremely abstract and idealized. He is thinking of them as, say, a comics reader might think of them. As a crimefighting team who are not together anymore, and this is bad.

this is just bulletpoint 2 in “tim is supposed to represent the audience”, not intending to be a condemnation of tim.

Thirdly

[image: first, a comic panel from Batman 440 showing a close up of Tim’s hand as he reads a paper and him thinking ‘No! the haly circus is closing?’ then, a series of comic panels from the new titans # 60. first, we see mr haly (off screen) and his cigar (on screen) as haly gestures at a photo of the flying grayson's on the wall. then he says "Yeah. Cost us a fortune and brought down our selling price. You know, sometimes I sit here and just remember the good old days. We were barely breaking even back then, too -- but man, were we having fun. then, we see dick grayson wearing jeans and a red shirt, walking through the circus ground. first, he looks kind of dejected and his hands are in his pockets. the narration box reads "he leaves, trying to reconcile the past and the present. Kids grow up and change. but why should everything do the same? The animal cages stink with waste. Was it always this way? At times like now, he wishes for never-never land." then, dick turns as he hears something and says "Hunh? That scream?" end image]

end image/begin comment - Nostalgia as a Theme

Nostalgia is an EXTREMELY strong theme in this comic. Batman is different, he’s not like he used to be. Haley’s circus is different and at risk, but Dick goes back and meets the performers he used to know -- some are still the same, some are in a more rough situation (alcoholic clown). Someone’s trying to kill his friends in the circus, it’s not really a place of childhood innocence for Dick. Dick explicitly wishes to be in never-never land (the imaginary far off place where you never grow up)

How things should be -- both in Tim’s mind and Dick’s mind, Haly’s mind -- is the idealistic past, but we clearly can’t go back to it -- Dick says that the first thing Bruce taught him was how to grow up.

Next bulletpoint:

[image: first are some comic panels showing Tim Drake talking to Dick Grayson and Alfred Pennyworth in wayne manor. Tim says “You know, since I was able to read, I clipped every article I could about Batman and Robin. Heck, I used to fantasize about what it would be like to be robin. I study hard. I get mostly A’s. I work out. I’m no circus acrobat, but I’m pretty good, I guess. But mostly, I read aobut you two. You’ve both been so important to me in so many ways. And when I see that without Robin Batman is going off hte deep end, I know there’s serious trouble.” next, we see Dick stepping forward and talking to Tim. he says "But you haven't told me anything I don't already know. I want the rest of it. All of it." end image]

end image/ begin commentary - textually a fanboy

Textually, Tim is presented as a Batman and Robin fanboy -- that’s how he found Batman’s secret identity (link)

He studies Batman and Robin from afar. He reads about them. Kind of like a comics reader would. he wants to be Robin. Again, superhero comics have some wish fulfillment element and definitely wanting to imagine yourself in a character’s shoes is an appeal for many fans. Tim wanted to imagine himself in robin’s shoes and fantasized about being him -- there’s kind of two layers here, one is the presumed audience member reading tim, wanting to imagine themselves in his shoes as he interacts with his heroes, the other is tim, who wanted to imagine himself in dick’s shoes.

re: the second posted image in this set: Tim hasn’t told dick anything that dick doesn’t know, because tim doesn’t know anything dick doesn’t know -- he is the comic reader here. That’s also why he’s so up-to-date on all of the other comic character’s stuff -- we see him list off all of the teen titans, he talks about jason’s death casually, he knows that alfred is batman’s confident -- he pretty much has all of the information that a reader of DC comics would have if they just got beamed into the DC universe at this point.

[image: first, two panels, one showing tim smiling and thinking "Wow! And I thought Harry did it. Man, Dick is good". tehn we see dick holding some photos and talking ot tim, who is at his bike. dick says "These pictures, two face is back in town, isn't he?" Tim says "You can tell, just from them? Wow! You're even better than I thought." the next scene is in the batcave. Dick is nightwing and is about to leave on his motor cycle, alfred and tim are behind him. tim says "no, not nightwing, Dick. don't you understand -- Batman needs Robin!" he turns to look at alfred and says "Doesn't anyone understand?" Alfred says "Perhaps, young man. Perhaps master Dick understands profoundly -- perhaps that is why he brought you here." tim looks surprised. end image]

end image/begin commentary: The old robin’s approval

another very important thing here: DC plays it as safe as possible with tim’s introduction, trying to make the audience like him, and one is definitely establishing that Tim both looks up to dick and thinks he’s cool (first two panels) and that he has dick’s presumed approval/blessing to be robin (last three panels). it’s also important to note that while tim is portrayed as competent, he never shows up Batman and Nightwing -- he rescues them because two-face lured them into an expert trap, but he doesn’t outdo either of them on fighting or detective work. this has an in universe explanation -- he is 13 years old, just starting out -- and an out of universe explanation -- if he’s not showing up anyone’s favorite character, he is presumably more palatable and less threatening for the presumed reader.

that’s what i mean when I say taht DC played their intro of tim very safe -- he falls in with the established characters, already likes them, is practically already a fan of them with full fanboy connotations. The idealized past is presented as something as desirable, both to the reader and to the characters themselves, and there is a strong current of nostalgia and returning things to how they “should” be with Batman having a robin. Tim voices what many readers may feel: That batman lost his way, that he needs Robin, and he gets to act out those feelings in the comic. the text acknowledges that they can’t just force dick back into it, that people have to grow up, and dick passes the mantle to tim.

overall I think that tim’s employment here was effective, but I look forward to seeing more when he’s allowed to be himself rather than an audience avatar. I understand lots of people like audience avatars and he was wildly popular presumably for those reasons, but I personally found the plotline lackluster at points.

#okay here it is #fade reads dc comics #dc comics #a lonely place of dying #batman 1940 #dick grayson #tim drake #batfam #alfred pennyworth #bruce wayne #character meta #or more of like #comic meta

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